Upcoming programmes and films not to miss on TVNZ heartland…

Hidden in the Numbers, Sunday January 29th, 7:30pm

Three-part series Hidden In The Numbers that looks at what statistics tell us about ourselves. Presented by comedian Te Radar, the series uses the NZ Census and other statistical information to document the changing face of New Zealand culture and life, and reveals the often unseen patterns that have shaped our society and made us who we are today.

Hidden In The Numbers also looks back at past statistics and examines the ways we have changed – both as individuals and as a nation. It looks at where we live; where we work; what we do with our spare time; how much money we have; how long we have to work to buy bread, are we getting richer or poorer, is it easier or harder to make ends meet than it used to be, what we buy; what we eat, how much we drink; what’s happening to our bodies our families, kids, marriage and divorce – they are all covered.

Location, Location, Location, Sunday January 29th, 8:30pm

Shot round the North Island, this series sees the extremes of human behaviour as the endurance of buyers and sellers are put to the test in the property market. Whether it’s the young couple making the big commitment and buying their first home together, or the classic investor looking for a do-up property on which to make a buck, the series sees a range of suburbs and house prices and situations you can relate to.

On tonight’s episode, Oliver looks a lot like other four-year-old kids.  The difference is he has autism, which seriously limits the way he interacts with the world. Gareth and Amanda know that intensive one-on-one therapy at this early stage could have a big impact on Oliver’s Future. Early therapy can improve his outlook and for that Amanda and Gareth have to pay.  The best option is to sell the house, the house that Amanda fell in love with at first sight

Street Legal, Wednesday February 1st 10pm

Jay Laga’aia is David Silesi, the maverick lawyer who is always on the side of the underdog, in Street Legal, the fast-paced, high-action drama series filmed entirely in New Zealand.

David Silesi and his colleagues use unorthodox methods of getting at the truth to see justice done for their clients but often their personal lives turn out to be more dramatic as the stresses and strains of living life on the legal edge take their toll.

In this series, David and Joni’s law firm, Wyeth & Associates, is in trouble. The repo man starts taking the furniture. The overdraft has run over its limit. Joni turns to Adie for a loan to keep afloat, but there are conditions. Lack of cashflow is a continual worry for Joni, a concern not helped by David’s tendency to spend lots of time on non-paying cases.

Street Legal co-stars Katherine Kennard as David Silesi’s law partner (and former love Joni Collins) and Charles Mesure as his nemesis Detective Senior Sergeant Kees Van Dam. It also stars Louise Wallace, Dwayne Cameron, Ingrid Park, Manu Bennett, Ben Baker, and Cal Wilson.

Eagle Vs Shark, Friday February 3rd 7:30pm

Lily (Loren Horsley) crashes Jarrod’s (Jemaine Clement, The Flight of the Conchords) party, ends up in his home town and lands a leading role in his hell bent plan to beat up an old high school bully. They tackle estranged family and stranger friends, only to find the real foe may be in the mirror.

Waititi’s first feature film, Eagle Vs Shark delivers a poignant social punch about facing up to who you really are. It is about accepting the good, the bad and the honestly awful – and when that happens everything can change.

The Ricky Gervais Show

Sunday, January 1st at 7:30pm

**New series** The Ricky Gervais Show will premiere on TV 3 from Sunday, January 1^st at 11:30pm. The animated show features Gervais and his long-time collaborator Stephen Merchant (The Office, Extras), and revolves around the world of their unusual friend, Karl Pilkington (An Idiot Abroad).

Originally starting out as a radio program in the U.K. in 2005, Gervais and Merchant decided to turn the show into a podcast, bringing Pilkington, a radio producer they had met years earlier, along. Soon the podcasts began to focus particularly on the eccentric mind of Pilkington.

The podcast became wildly popular, gaining a Guinness World Record in 2007 for being the most-downloaded podcast on the Internet.

“It’s such a natural for animation,” Lisa Ullmann explains, Wildbrain Vice President. “We worked closely with Gervais figuring out how he wanted himself to look, as well as Steven and Karl.”

Drug Bust

Monday, January 2^nd at 7:30pm

Step inside the world of the New Zealand Police’s war on drugs. Drug Bust is a fast paced factual observational series that follows New Zealand’s largest police district, Counties Manukau, as they fight the war against drugs.

The district has the highest population in New Zealand but it is also one of the poorest regions – and with this comes crime. With unprecedented access, Drug Bust follows the district’s drug investigation teams as they take on the criminal underworld in a fight to take back their communities. From children living in meth houses to drug related violence, the viewer gets a birds-eye look at the damage drugs are doing to our communities.

Kalgoorlie Cops

Monday, January 2^nd at 8pm

The show takes a no-holds-barred look at the work of the 217 uniformed police and detectives who control the world’s largest police beat on the planet. Situated at the edge of the Nullabor Plain in the West Australian outback with a population of 32,000 people, Kalgoorlie is a town like no other.

Sprouting from the gold rush of 1893, these days the town is flush with money, miners, hookers and bikers – meaning there’s never a dull moment for Kalgoorlie’s cops.

From murders to drug trafficking, organised crime, theft, prostitution, domestic disputes and old-fashioned Friday night punch-ups, to searching for missing tourists and prospectors in the huge expanse of desert surrounding Kalgoorlie, this action-packed series takes a never before-seen look at the workings of the biggest police beat in the world.

Come Fly With Me

Friday, January 6^th at 9:30pm

The hilarious Matt Lucas and David Walliams (Little Britain) airport mockumentary, Come Fly With Me, is set in an airport and following the lives of the people who hold it all together – including airline owners, check-in staff, fast-food workers, immigration officers, pilots and cabin crew, as well as the passengers.

“Sometimes members of the public gather behind the camera and like to watch,” explains Lucas about the filming process. “But what you gain is hopefully a show that looks like no other comedy show; that has a kind of authenticity and a scale about it that you could not easily create in a studio, unless you had tens of millions of pounds to build one.”

Super City

Friday, January 6^th at 10pm

Super City is the local comedy series which sees Madeleine Sami (Jaquie Brown Diaries and Sione’s Wedding) hilariously transform into five very different characters all living in New Zealand’s super city.

Directed by Taika Waititi (Boy & Eagle vs. Shark), Super City sees Sami hilariously portraying five acutely observed and very different characters all living in Auckland.

There’s Pasha, an aging cheerleader clinging to her partying lifestyle; Azeem, an immigrant taxi driver embracing Maori culture; Jo, a closeted gym instructor in love with her best friend; Linda, the runt of her “old girls” clique fostering impoverished artists and Georgie, a homeless girl whose freedom is unexpectedly interrupted.

“Hopefully viewers will get a lot of laughs and take these unique personalities into their hearts…,” Madeleine Sami says about her onscreen characters.

Documentary: Katie: My Beautiful Face

Tuesday, January 3^rd at 9:30pm

Katie was young and beautiful, but a vicious acid attack destroyed her face. Now Katie: My Beautiful Face follows Katie as she tries to re-build her life.

A model and budding TV presenter, 24-year-old Katie had a glowing future ahead of her. But in 2008, a vicious acid attack destroyed her face, and with it her career and her life as she knew it.

More than a year on, and having undergone countless operations and rounds of physiotherapy, she has now chosen to give up her anonymity and tell her own story for the first time.

“I’ve decided to tell my story so that people know what these men did to me,” Kate explains to UK’s Channel 4. “To help people understand who have ignorance about people that look different, and for people not to be frightened of burns and the stigma attached to it, to understand that it’s still the same person underneath.”

TVNZ has announced its new season of programming. The line-up includes all the biggest returning series as well as local dramas and international blockbuster movies.

Top picks for TV1 include a brand news series of Absolutely Fabulous and our own Sam Neill starring in a new drama called Alcatraz revolving around America’s most infamous prison, as well as more stories from Beyond the Darklands and Big Fat Gypsy Weddings.

New shows for TV2 include 2 Broke Girls and Chelsea Straight Up starring Laura Prepon from That 70s Show, as well as returning series such as American Idol and Go Girls.

For the full line-up visit the TVNZ website here.

Below is a listing of the top ten programmes on NZTV, recorded as of the 25th September 2011 via Nielsen TV Audience Measurement.

The top programme being watched is still One news TV ONE, with a mixture of New Zealand drama and current affairs in the other top spots and RWC coverage making it into the top 10.

To watch some of these programmes please follow this link to the TVNZ website.

Below is a listing of the top ten programmes on NZTV, recorded as of the 18th of August 2011 via Nielsen TV Audience Measurement.

The top programme being watched is still One news TV ONE, with a mixture of New Zealand drama and current affairs programmes dominating the other top spots.

To watch some of these programmes please follow this link to the TVNZ website.

Below is a listing of the top ten programmes on NZTV, recorded as of the 18th July 2011 via Nielsen TV Audience Measurement.

The top programme being watched is Shortland Street, with News programmes dominating the remainder, and interestingly The Food Truck is currently rating fourth – a reality TV programme looking at the challenge of making fast food healthy.To watch some of these programmes please follow this link to the TVNZ website.

TVNZ 7’s launches a new local show – Raising Children In New Zealand – about parenting children from birth to age three.

The ground-breaking series is based on research that confirms the crucial importance of the first three years, will provide a ‘one-stop-shop’ for Kiwi parents and caregivers by combining the knowledge and expertise of New Zealand’s key child-focused agencies.

Raising Children in New Zealand is a joint initiative between Barnardos, Plunket, SKIP (the Family and Community Services arm of The Ministry of Social Development), TVNZ 7 and the Lion Foundation. The 10-part half hour series, as well as more than 40 short episodes, will provide a valuable source of practical information covering everything from breastfeeding, postnatal distress and how becoming a parent changes your life, to toilet training, coping with ear infections, parenting styles and encouraging good behaviour.

A free DVD of the series will also be distributed to all new parents through Plunket and Barnardos and episodes will be available to view online on TVNZ Ondemand and on a new Raising Children website which will provide additional information and links to other useful websites.

Featuring 18 core families, each of the 10 half-hour episodes will also be fronted by a well-known New Zealander and will focus on a particular age and stage of the first three years. These celebrity parents include actress Monique Bree (Kirby on Go Girls), sports presenter and former Silver Ferns’ captain Bernice Mene, All Black Cory Jane, TV presenter Sonia Gray and actor Kiel McNaughton (Scotty on Shortland Street).

Raising Children is the brainchild of producer Jude Dobson, who has been producing parenting TV shows for the past nine years. Inspiration came from an Australian resource which has been available to Australian parents since 2007.

“There has been a real need in New Zealand for a show like this,” says Barnardos Chief Executive, Murray Edridge. “It puts parenting in the spotlight and highlights what a hugely important job raising children is.

“The first three years last forever. Getting it right is hugely important – for our children, for families and for society in general,” he says.

TVNZ Kidzone24 will feature trusted educational and inspiring content for pre-school children in an advertising-free environment. TVNZ Kidzone24 will air 24 hours a day on the SKY platform from 1 May.

Chief Executive Rick Ellis is delighted that SKY has made it possible for TVNZ to extend the popular Kidzone brand beyond the two hours that are available on public service channel TVNZ 7.

“Kidzone has been an increasingly popular collection of programming, providing educational and entertaining content for young New Zealanders, with a significant amount of locally produced programming.

“It is fantastic that we are now able to offer a commercially-viable, expanded Kidzone channel, on the SKY platform.”

The TVNZ Kidzone24 schedule features a strong focus on local programming including existing favourites like Kidzone with Kayne which features p resenter Kayne Peters and offers opportunities for young viewers to think and learn about the world around them. Other local shows include Buzzy Bee and Friends , hilarious sketch-comedy show The Giggles and f rom the creative minds of the Academy Award-winning Weta Workshop, The Wot Wots .

TVNZ Kidzone24 will also feature exciting new content including Guess with Jess (the popular cat from Postman Pat) which will allow children to learn about science and nature and Babar And The Adventures of Badou – a show centred around Babar’s eight year old grandson, Badou and speaks to the importance of diversity, acceptance and strong family values.

The channel will be located on SKY Channel 046, within the stable of family channels and will be available as part of the SKY Basic Digital Package. Select content will also be available on iSKY.

For more information please follow this link

For Shadow a homeless Aucklander who has spent most of his life on the streets. Drama has been a been a positive  and life changing experience.

“Shadow”, who says he has forgotten his real name because of years of glue-sniffing, started living on the streets in his early teens because of problems at home with his mother’s boyfriend.

Yesterday, at a national conference on homelessness, he sang and played the harmonica and with five other homeless men.

He also plays a homeless man in a TV3 series called Super City.

“They had to get a streetie to play a streetie,” he said. “I hope they do another series, I wouldn’t mind doing some more work. It was cool.”

Auckland City Mission homeless worker Wilf Holt, who helped to form the drama group 18 months ago, said it tapped the skills of people such as Shadow and guitarist Jem Pauro, 41, both regular Queen St buskers.

The group worked with professionals from The Edge to put on a show called Homeless Economics in the recent Auckland Fringe Festival.

Another member, Garry, 55, said he had known most of the members for 10 years and the drama group was “the biggest positive change I’ve seen”.

“To see them come out in front of people – wow!

“For me, it’s been the greatest distraction in my life. It takes me away from my personal issues that I can’t fathom to understand. It’s an extraordinary thing, I believe this should be part and parcel of every country’s homeless policy.”

Iris Pahau, of the Coalition to End Homelessness, which organised yesterday’s conference, said homelessness was “sadly, a growing industry”.

Auckland Night Shelter manager Corie Haddock, who co-chairs the coalition, said he was advising Tauranga police, council and churches about a planned night shelter for a growing number of rough sleepers. He will meet another group in Palmerston North in June.

He said the coalition wanted a parliamentary inquiry into all aspects of homelessness, including boarding houses, overcrowding and substandard houses as well as rough sleeping.

National MP Katrina Shanks, who chairs Parliament’s social services committee, said the committee felt the whole issue was too broad and lacked adequate research, but it was considering an inquiry into boarding houses.

“We have just done a lot of legislative changes with the Residential Tenancies Act,” she said.

“So it’s a good bit of work to see whether it’s changing what we are concerned about, which is slum landlords.”

For a full listing of this story please follow this link

Jax Hamilton and Anthony McEntee and judge Simon Gault (centre) preparing dishes for Euro relaunch party .

Things heated up last night on the latest episode of NZ master chef. The challenge was to cook for 100 vip’s at the launch of Simon Gault Euro Restaurant. The top ten impressed and judges decided to reward them with no one being sent home last night. Which forms the question is there going to be a double elimination next week?

The day started well for the contestants, boarding a party bus, believing they had a day of relaxation ahead of them.

Instead, they were told by judge Simon Gault, they were about to face one of their hardest challenges yet – cooking five-star dishes for the relaunch of Gault’s restaurant, Euro.

The group was divided into five teams of two, the first time the group had been paired up in a challenge, with each team preparing a dish for the guests.

The team with the highest score would be rewarded with a dinner at Euro, prepared by Gault himself, while one member of the losing team would be sent home.

So began a stressful day of prepping, cooking and well cooking again, as contestants faced up to the reality of preparing meals in a professional kitchen.

In the words of contestant Anthony McEntee, “We weren’t just thrown in the deep-end, we were shot out of a canon into the middle of the Atlantic and expected to swim to shore.”

McEntee, who was paired with Jax Hamilton, had the challenge of preparing duck breasts with foie gras ice cream and provided one of the more lighter moments in the kitchen when he binned several duck breasts after burning them.

That left him short of several duck breasts, but he played dumb when Hamilton counted and said they were short.

He said his main memory of the day was “fright”.

McEntee said the contestants were ”duped” into getting on a party bus but the mood quickly turned to one of terror once the challenge was laid bare.

“It was a very daunting prospect.”

And he said he has an innocent explanation about the duck breasts which ended up in the bin.

“We were only ever given 35 duck breasts to begin with and then I had to go source some more.

“We were given a chef to help us catch up for a bit, so it was blind panic because I didn’t realise that I didn’t have enough duck breasts.

“Later on, who knows what happened to them. Three or so went in the bin.

“There was no covering there, when you’re under so much pressure you just forget to do the simplest things.

“I use numbers all day, everyday in my job and I couldn’t count.”

Even making the ice cream was filled with pitfalls.

“After the first effort I was told by the chef it was not good enough and was then told off for wasting Euro’s food produce.

“To be honest I was quite intimidated and when he said ”you’ll have to make do” I assumed he meant I had to use the remaining 14 eggs.

“I didn’t realise there were trays and trays of eggs out the back I could have easily gone and used.

“I used 14 eggs and tried to alter the recipe in my head but when Gault came over and asked me if I’d followed the recipe it fell apart.”

If contestants needed anymore pressure they got it in the form of Euro’s restaurant manager Robere Pothier, who seemed to terrify everyone in his path.

“My grandmother’s been dead for 10years and she’d be faster than you tonight,” he barked at one point.

McEntee said he doesn’t think the staff were trying to be hard “it’s just the way they are as professionals”.

“Robere only accepted the best and would tell us he had seen better things on the back streets of Paris. He was intimidating.”

By the end of the service McEntee said everyone had learnt so much about what it takes to be a chef.

“And the passion that we all thought we had, that was the true test of it.”

Stu Todd and Nadia Lim won the competition but McEntee and Hamilton found themselves in the bottom team, with Michael Lee and a very worried and teary Tracey Lee Hooton getting the second lowest score.

So it must have been pure relief when Gault announced nobody was going home.

“Euro’s my baby and you didn’t break it.”

To watch this episode of NZ Master Chef please follow this link

What did you think of this episode, let us know.