ScreenScribe

   Three Kiwi staples and the latest seasons of Vikings and Outlander are among the series streaming for the last time next month on Lightbox. Box sets of The Almighty Johnsons and Outrageous Fortune will exit the Spark platform on November 30, along with the first two seasons of Westside. S4 of Outlander will depart […]

This morning Three announced The Block NZ would bounce back for a new season on July 8. It will air 7.00 Sundays and 7.30 Monday-Wednesday within days of another local crowdpleaser, Westside, resuming its run. As a curtain raiser to the drama’s return, Three will screen an All-Star Family Feud special, which pits the casts […]

Next month Lightbox will stream its first commissioned dramas, one of which it’s already renewed. “We’re really thrilled to be taking this crucial next step and investing directly in local productions,” Lightbox General Manager Hema Patel says. “New Zealanders are loyal and avid consumers of local content, and we know our customers will love these excellent series.” High […]

FILTHY RICH |TV2, 8.30 Monday Back in the 1980s as local drama production wound down at the Avalon Studios, one of the last gasps was a thing called Seekers. The basic premise was three kids vying to inherit money from a mother they never knew they had. Thirty years on, next to no drama comes […]

TV Preview: Westside | TV3, 8.30 Sunday I’m clearly disadvantaged when it comes to watching Westside – I’ve never sat through an entire episode of Outrageous Fortune. I gave it a go once, but it was two commercial breaks before I’d realised there were twins not slack continuity, and by then it was too late. I suspect you […]

The first reviews are in for Sky’s new SoHo drama, Banshee, and while opinion is split over its merits, Outrageous Fortune’s Antony Starr gets two thumbs up as the hero. Newsday dismissed Banshee as B-grade pulp, complete with “a grizzled hero fast with his fists (and the ladies), plenty of soft porn, graphic violence, implausible plotting, […]

Series Premiere: Tricky Business (TV3, 8.30) Mercantile agents Kate and Rick have everything ahead of them, until Rick makes an ill-advised business decision that traps them deep in debt and means they have to sell up and move in with her parents. Don’t mistake this Aussie, cross-generational family drama for another Packed to the Rafters clone (complete with another […]

NZ On Air has approved funding of $6.9 million for series two of TV3’s HD hit, The Almighty Johnsons. Thirteen more episodes of the ‘go gods’ comedy/drama have been commissioned from South Pacific Pictures for screening next year. The first series, which averaged a 9.8 rating and 25.7% share in TV3’s target 25-54 demographic, had […]

TV2 tonight will screen a world premiere in HD. Panic at Rock Island is a disaster telemovie co-produced by Wellington’s Gibson Group and Goalpost Pictures Australia. It won’t air on Channel Nine until later in the year, making tonight’s 8.30 broadcast a world first. About two Kiwis at a Sydney Harbour rock concert where a […]

TV2 is soon to resurrect Fringe in a new late-night slot. The stylish paranormal hour will resume its second-season HD run next month at 10.30pm on Thursdays. The demotion comes six months after TV2 squandered Fringe’s potential by teaming it with incompatible re-runs of The Mentalist opposite TV3’s HD juggernaut line-up of Outrageous Fortune and […]