2013 TV Review quiz

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The questions relate to last year’s TV and radio reviews. Answers at the end.

1. Which show is this?
“The twittersphere’s eruption of real-time criticism was hilarious and devastating. I thought the rights angle and the ‘Bok bitch bag bash’ incident AKA the Veldt Viper (a hissing, striking, spitting South African lady who described the clamper, named Mr Clout, as being ‘lower than a snake’s shit shadow’) saved the clamper story with her tirade.”

2. What is the name of the shitbox?
“TVNZ would rather do commercial deals with Sky over the Licence Fee-funded back catalogue than it would run the heritage channel on Freeview. TVNZ would rather be co-opted into Sky’s defensive Commerce Commission-defeating ‘[name]’ shitbox sideshow than offer a single channel free of commercials.”

3. Which show is this?
“A lot was being lost while a lot was just being repeated – repeated in ever more hysterical degrees by the combatants. [Hosts] egged them on, at one point encouraging the young Gareth Morgan fanatic to thump the desk. It crossed into such moments of pantomime too often.”

4. Which two channels?
“Going through the Freeview channels I can only count two that don’t carry ads. Two out of 13 (14 with Trackside).”

5. What was the name of the show and who was the recently deceased lawyer who had previously fronted it?
“Given TVNZ7 was as thin on original content as Damian Christie’s hair these days it is probably not that surprising that the twin flagships of Media7 and Backbenches managed to round Cape Shitcan in one piece. They were quality shows – composing the whole fleet – that anyone can remember (with [show] a special mention).”

6. Which show is this and who was the only one fated to have made it to a 2014 season?
“and almost certainly ill-fated commencement to a concept hatched in marketing with as little as a cut out of the Herald’s Sideswipe column as an editorial direction.”

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7. Who was Garth Bray interviewing?
“[name] said the girls ‘trap’ them. And when Bray asked whether [name] – who has famously slept around on his wives – was involved in anything like the Savile scandal he started his reply: ‘I don’t know…’. Mmm, hmm. Probably not the best answer. And then he mumbled and screwed his face up and looked as though he was arguing the case in his head about whether it could be or not, but sided for not really… but after considering it. Probably not the best answer. Then he went on to say that he believes in kharma and reincarnation and that the victims of abuse bring it on themselves… in part. Which was probably another answer that was not the best. And that accused should have anonymity… Terrible answers, wrong answers – but truthful answers, real answers.”

8. Which two professions are being stereotyped and maligned?
“It may be mid-March, but the television season has only just started. We thought the [profession 1] and [profession 2] had it good – they’ve got nothing on network television for long holidays and limited output.”

9. Apart from this one, how many other TV studio interviews did Len Brown give in the month after his re-election?
“His limp politically and ideologically negotiated victory had not even been sealed when Len went and, quite literally, fucked it. The mayoralty of Auckland and the epitomic, defining act of its First Citizen, is an image of a balding middle-aged white man, sexually exploiting a young Asian underling in an official room named after the tribe on whose land the city was founded and on a table upon which a Maori would never even sit on out of basic respect. How more appropriately inappropriate for how Auckland operates and intends to be operated.
When sprung Len goes on Campbell Live within hours. Immediate damage control in which Campbell reels out the patsies and Len puts on the hound dog sads where there should have been tears. He refuses to discuss anything, would rather go on about political plots, offers no real apology to anyone for anything and wants to get back to work. Campbell offers more space and understanding head nodding and supportive murmmerings to coax Len into some sort of contrition or admission. Nothing. He gave nothing, he remained without any awareness, without denying a single point. Nothing. Nixon gave more to Frost. Then again Frost demanded it and Frost never voted for Len like his mate Cambo must have.”

10. Who was the NZ Herald’s media columnist, John Drinnan, still paranoid about in the comments to one of these TV reviews?
“But my view is still mis-represented.
Criticism is that [person] is a government relations adviser at Chapman Tripp assisting companies – such as Solid Energy – not simply that [person] works for a company that does so.
Some might say [person] is works as a lobbyist, though [person] rejects that definition.”

11. Which climatic event?
“The [climatic event] is a tough topic for TV because it’s a lack of something. It’s very much like covering paint drying. And a lot of whinging farmers – and we all heard enough of them in the 80′s to put us off the prospect of any current bleating. Like a quavering Jodi Foster to Anthony Hopkins’ Dr Lector – yes we remember the crying of the farmers, how they shrieked and moaned for what seemed like an eternity in the long dark nights of Rogernomics. It’s [climatic event], get over it. I tuned out.”

12. Tasker was caught on air saying he wanted to have sex with a Jewish what?
“Final jibe, but then the announcement – abandoned over the time. A farce and a joke says Tasker. Lestor is pissed off, calling foul. Back in the studio Chris Dixon says it is a 40 minute rule. Finally someone who actually knows something. Peter Williams says that the limit was contrived for television. We all laugh, at the irony and the anti-climax, and make ourselves another cuppa.
So they are back again at 9:40. Less enthused now. A lot less. So I’ll be more concise.
Start, Oracle bit behind. NZ clip Oracle about 3 minutes in, but no penalty? Both ‘foiling’, Oracle ahead at mark 3… By… 46 secs… ‘too much to make up’ says Lestor, so he’s packed it in already.
The race hasn’t finished yet and NZ’s sense of entitlement still doesn’t seem abated. It’s just a bit annoying that we haven’t won our final victory. It’s ‘cruel’ according to Tasker. All this arrogance would be recognised as a typically American and Australian characteristic to the NZer, but they don’t seem to see it in themselves.”

13. What time is it?
“Russell Brown’s slumming it at TV3, dragging his support squad along, drinks and all, to a new gig up the road from TV3′s Auckland headquarters. Though, why bother with the fuss – of the rituals of ego massage, let alone the dry subject matter – when the show screens at [time]? That is a joke sort of time slot, when the whacky ads and infomercials start. When the wanking and insomnia starts. It’s hard to believe that [time] is not a typo. That’s when people like Russell – he assures me via Twitter – are out dancing.”

14. What are the names of the two people in the ad?
“One of those ads that the bald head guy has obviously put him up to? He stands next to a white plastic shitbox of a ute, assembled in lucky factory No.8 from sub factories across East Asia and designed by the looks of it on the the back of a crooked napkin at the canteen of the engineering workshop during smoko. It’s an ugly white munter of a thing. [I mean the car, not him] Probably made by the same East Asian concerns buying up the farmland in the background. But there’s log brain mumbling something unlikely as it is unintelligible about how great this thing is. The bald guy must just be there to feed him his deer crack because his dead pan slapstick routine is totally lost on TV. Is he adding or detracting? It would be useful to perhaps translate whatever Sir log head said from caveman into English so we can understand. That bald guy should try snorting the [name] mix like the legends do and leave the awkward stoner moments that don’t work to wankers like Newsboy.”

15. Which two shows controversially received NZ On Air funding?
“but the notion that some of this state subsidy will be going to pay a surly Pommy prick with a bad haircut and a big ego for having had a slightly different, more tediously drawn out take on the talent show, is raising eyebrows, temperatures and hackles (whatever hackles are). Same complaint with the Maori version of NZ On Air, Te Mangai Paho, giving [name] $420k for the second season of soft porn and jandals […] Mozzie Kardashians.”

16. Which channel is this?
“Fake and nasty is so in right now. So much hair-pulling, so much white pants, so much ‘oh no she didn’t’, so much ‘oh yeah she did!’ The sight of wannabe TV stars (because none of them seem to be actual TV stars) having their petty grasping and antics on full display is no less distasteful just because they are from Chelsea and speak in Home Counties accents than if they were Hommies from a Charleston trailer park. […]
The seamless thoughts from video games to the news to fashion to music via generation Y or Z – or whatever the Christian club is (and I hope they have a wonderful time at Parachute) – is just so much static. I can’t believe they are still running promos for their facebook etc.,
given shop is closing. […] I miss the variety on the heavily eroding Freeview, but not this one in particular. It’s like hearing the Truth is closing down: you’re sad another newspaper is shutting, but you’re not shedding any tears for a smutty shit rag.”

17. Which TV series?
“Of all the things that could be put into a time capsule to commemorate and epitomise the colonial era of the nation, a box set of [name] would have to feature. I would pull out the NZ Company charter and Ross Meurant’s baton to fit in some [name] DVDs.
[…]
The couples who want to be on [name] appear to be marginal entrepreneurs running all manner of tourism-related businesses beyond the reach of the RMA and consents and have submitted themselves to the show on the basis of the free advertising it provides (including a competition run in conjunction with the show’s sponsor that appears either side of the ad break). It is very much like a long, boring postcard from not terribly interesting people who didn’t really go anywhere interesting and have little to say.”

18. Who was Mihi Forbes interviewing?
“Her gutsy journalism was revealed in her take down of the capitalist beast, Employers and Manufactures Grand Dragon, Alistair Thompson, where she stood down this glowering, blustering, threatening crimson-flushed oaf in his own cave. Respect. So why did she let [interviwee] – the bewildered lamb – get away with his ponderous, dithering non/half-answ…nyea… responses to what were essentially a fluffy candy floss cloud of patsy questions? Seeing him coaxed gently from pen to pen by Mihi would only have made sense if he was being led to the abattoir.”

19. Which radio network?
“It’s like Henare Te Ua wasn’t just the first Maori allowed in front of [the network] mic – he was also the last. And of course there are times, many times – and perhaps it is because they don’t allow any non-Europeans in there – when they tend to disappear up their own bottoms.”

20. Which South African paralympian armed killer?
“He’s the political editor so he knows that’s eleven tenths of bullshit. The Nats are as likely to tax unhealthy food as [South African paralympian armed killer] is to be asked to give the Gun Safety address to the Royal Society for Not Shooting Your Girlfriend Dead.”


And

The

Answers

Are

1. 3rd Degree (TV3)
2. Igloo
3. The Vote (TV3)
4. Parliament, Te Reo
5. Court Report (TVNZ 7), Greg King
6. Seven Sharp (TVNZ One), Jessie Mulligan
7. Bill Roach (plays Ken Barlow on Coronation Street)
8. Politicians, teachers
9. None
10. Linda Clarke (on The Vote)
11. Drought
12. Woman
13. 11:30pm
14. Sir Colin ‘Pinetree’ Meads, ‘That guy’ Leigh Hart
15. The X Factor NZ (TV3), The GC (TV3)
16. TVNZ U
17. Country Calendar (TVNZ One)
18. David Shearer
19. RNZ National
20. Oscar Pistorious