Who will win this prime time slugfest?
Why Taskmaster NZ and The Traitors NZ have turned Monday and Tuesday nights into a death duel. Plus, why you need to see Blackberry, and where's season three of Reservation Dogs?
I’m old enough to remember the good old days of network television, when 6pm news shows took pot shots at each other in the media, stole each other’s presenters by offering mega salaries and station bosses lived or died by the previous night’s ratings. While those days are long gone, occasionally something happens that briefly reignites those feuds of old. This week, TVNZ 2 began scheduling new episodes of Taskmaster NZ up against Three’s new reality import The Traitors NZ on two nights of the week. What does it mean? Who will win? And should you even care? Let’s discuss…
-Chris Schulz, Rec Room editor
Taskmaster’s next task? Destroy the Traitors
Sieni Leo’o Olo, the stand-up comic also known as Bubbah (also known as Tina from Turners), is sitting in a caravan dressed as a British schoolgirl. “Me and my friends will blow a load out there," she says, wafting a hand towards the window. She flirts with a belt tied around her neck, then butchers a thick Cockney accent. “I’m out there skanking and a’ ganking,” she says. Pleased with her own quotable, she shortens it to, “Skanky ganky,” and smirks at Paul Williams. Taskmaster NZ’s taskmaster’s assistant shakes his head and looks down at the table. He’s confused. “I don’t really understand what you’re saying,” he mutters.
For her latest task, Williams has asked Bubbah to be as British as possible. Karen O’Leary became a football hooligan, Dai Henwood quietly queued for far too long and Melanie Bracewell did some colonising. Bubbah, this season’s wildcard who appears to have never heard of Taskmaster before she arrived on set, seems to believe she’s auditioning for a spot on Love Island. “How come I saw you chattin’ up Dana?” she asks Williams. “Oh my god, I’m going to cry on national TV now … do you just go around here like a lad with your physique toyin’ with everyone’s feelings?”
Around the same time, over on Three, something more brutal is happening. Murder is afoot in a mansion full of comics, influencers, radio jocks, former Taskmaster contestants, C-list celebrities and several people who fit every single one of those categories. “The votes have been cast,” declares ringmaster Paul Henry in his best Batman voice. Mike Puru, who can usually be found selling knick-knacks to daytime TV viewers, looks sick. He has every reason to be: he’s been eliminated. “Mike, with the largest number of votes, you have been banished from the game,” announces Henry with glee.
Henry’s entire television career seems to have been an audition to play the villainous host of this new imported reality format, The Traitors NZ. Clearly, he’s loving every second of it – especially when Puru reveals to the cast mates who eliminated him they’ve got it wrong. He’s not one of the game’s traitors. Instead, he’s a “faithful” – one of the good guys. “Nooo … oh Mike,” moans the comedian Justine Smith as he departs. Henry rubs his hands then dishes out some sage advice to those remaining. “I suggest you sleep with one eye open,” he says, stomping out of the room.
Back on Taskmaster, Bracewell is meowing like a cat. On all fours with feline face paint smeared across her nose and cheeks, she toys with a ball of wool, then laps at a saucer of milk. She’s been tasked with doing something surprising. O’Leary kissed Williams on the lips, and Bubbah tackled him to the floor. Bracewell has gone full feline before realising her mistake. It’s all for nothing. She’s supposed to complete her task once a timer ends, but there are 120 seconds still to go. Desperate, she throws the contents of a rubbish bin over her head. “I can’t believe I crawled around the ground meowing and licking milk out of a bowl … in my spare time.”
Over on Three, tensions are high. Matt Heath has been caught red-handed. “I’m looking forward to getting back to my kids and my dog,” he tells a pensive room full of nervous contestants who have just eliminated the radio DJ and former Taskmaster contestant. Heath decides to go out with a bang. He raises his hands in the air and yells: “I was a traitor … see you in hell!” The room erupts like they’ve just won the World Cup. This is exactly the kind of moment The Traitors was built for.
The 7.30pm timeslot on Monday and Tuesday nights has suddenly turned into a battleground. On one channel, we have the return of a local stalwart propping up the local comedy industry. Taskmaster is a frequently funny UK import now into its fourth season, and has created young stars, cemented others, and boosted morale during a bleak Covid lockdown. Occasionally, it delivers unmissable absurdity into the TV history books. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched David Correos’ demented freestyle battle – holding a bowl of hot spaghetti while delivering lines like, “Imma drown you / In your own blood” – but it makes me cackle deliriously every time.
On the other channel, we have the hyped newcomer on the scene. Overseas, The Traitors is the hottest reality TV property since muscled-up singles were placed in a resort and filmed for our enjoyment on Love Island. Dark, twisted and cruel, The Traitors asks contestants to lie and backstab for our entertainment, and gives Paul Henry a reason to smirk mercilessly. Who is a traitor? Who is a faithful? Which one do you choose? Do you watch one show then stream the other, or flick between the two? How do you keep up?
It’s a tough choice. Taskmaster NZ remains reliably entertaining but it’s also showing signs of its age. Little has changed since season one: each season’s slate of contestants feel like they’re picked to fill certain roles – the ageing pro, the young one, and, for Bubbah this season, the wildcard. Recent challenges have felt a bit hit or miss, like an early attempt this season to hit some cricket wickets with a ball. If Taskmaster NZ makes it to season five it may need a revamp, or they may need to look further afield to find a fresh batch of cast members. How about five wildcards? That kind of chaos could be supremely watchable.
The Traitors is also compelling viewing, although its casting is baffling. Overseas, randoms are usually thrown together, but here the cast is mostly made up of the same reality TV rabble we’ve seen from previous seasons of Dancing with the Stars or The Masked Singer. Perhaps that’s designed to entice viewers to watch a new format for its first season, but if The Traitors NZ survives for another, it will need to get more creative with its casting. Shirley from Hawera taking on Michael from Remuera during the robust round table conversations could be mightily entertaining.
The real question to ask is, why is this happening? Everyone knows linear television is tanking, viewership is down year-on-year, streaming rules and the kids are all on TikTok anyway. Putting two of the biggest local reality shows of the year up against each other in a prime time ratings battle harkens back to a time when Paul Holmes was enticed across to Prime TV’s studios only for no one to watch, or when John Hawkesby was bought out by TVNZ and then paid even more to quickly depart.
In other words, the networks don’t really seem to be that competitive anymore, and they’re probably shooting themselves in the feet by squaring up like this. Either show could easily have waited a couple of months to find clearer water. Still, I’m happy it’s happening. Competition is a sign of a healthy TV industry, and it’s been a long time since we’ve been able to say we’ve had anything close to resembling that. Pass the popcorn. Let’s hope this is the start of a new kind of modern TV revival.
Join The Spinoff Members!
Become a member to support what we do and help us do more. Every contribution exclusively funds our journalism and helps keep it freely available to all. Join today! Already a member? Ka nui te mihi, your support means the world to us.
Blackberry refuses to phone it in
In WeCrashed, a barefoot Silicon Valley tech megalomaniac builds a co-working office empire and watches it crumble. In The Dropout, a Steve Jobs fanatic creates a blood-testing company out of big dreams, false hopes and blinded investors. In LulaRich, The Beanie Bubble and Super Pumped … do you get the picture? We’re stuck in a corporate biopic content avalanche, and much of it (like Tetris) sucks. Blackberry does not suck. The film about the first keyboard phone includes several impressive performances, plenty of nostalgia for the early 2000s, a great soundtrack and vibes from The Social Network. I highly recommend getting yourself to a theatre for this (just make sure you put your phone away – imagine the embarrassment). (Blackberry is screening in select theatres now)
When will we see Reservation Dogs’ third season?
It’s one of the most acclaimed shows of the past two years. Executive produced by Taika Waititi, Reservation Dogs has nailed that perfect combination of adolescent malarkey, surreal absurdity and supreme localisation. It’s so damned funny – and it’s also coming to an end. The show’s third season will be its last, and US viewers are already four episodes deep into it. Yet here in Aotearoa, we can’t watch it. Disney+ doesn’t say when it’s coming and a rep didn’t respond to Rec Room’s request for comment. So we’ll just have to make do with reviews like this one from The Washington Post: “Reservation Dogs is ending its too-short run as impish and funny as it is sad and wise … [it] could have gone on much, much longer.”
All the new stuff you can watch this weekend
You might think Depp v. Heard – the Netflix series based around the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard domestic abuse court case that only ended in June – is a rush job. But the overwhelming ruling from early critics seems to be confusion over whose side Emma Cooper’s three-part doco wants to be on. The Daily Beast calls it a “tactless win for pro-Johnny fans” but The San Francisco Chronicle says its bias towards Heard is obvious. Cooper told Vanity Fair she wasn’t trying to change anyone’s minds, so you may need to watch this one and see for yourself. Or don’t. That’s totally fine too.
Elsewhere, Neon has the seventh season of Billions and legal drama Waco: The Aftermath, TVNZ+ has the tennis drama Fifteen-Love and the second season of the Craig Robinson comedy Killing It, and Disney+ has the movie Miguel Wants to Fight and Prime Video debuts the first season of Harlan Coben’s Shelter, based on the popular mystery series. If you need a horror film, Shudder has the well-reviewed Bad Things.
If things are looking a little light on streaming, you might have a better time at the movies this weekend. Blackberry, the tech film about the rise and fall of the keyboard phone might be late to our shores but it lands with rave reviews. “A compelling portrait of a company that flew too close to the sun,” says The Los Angeles Times. Elsewhere, Strays is Will Ferrell’s adult comedy about talking animals, and Jules looks even more bonkers. I can’t explain this one: honestly, just go watch the trailer.
For more try our weekly New to Streaming guide.
Everything you need to know
Changes are afoot at Prime, which will now be known as Sky Open. Why? “The new distinctive channel identity better connects our free-to-air channel to our family of Sky platforms and channels,” a spokesperson tells Stuff.
Ahead of the third season of her wildly successful show Starstruck, Rose Matefeo tells The Guardian she is full of guilt for making a rom-com. “Maybe through Starstruck I’ve added to the canon of a genre that I do have a lot of respect for but I think is maybe bad?” The full piece is full of self-doubt and a great read.
Stewart Sowman-Lund visits the Taskmaster NZ house for a day of filming and shenanigans and finds a weird anomaly: being really bad at a task is often as impressive as being really good at it. Read his full story here.
Look, I wouldn’t normally stoop this low but ‘Bradley Cooper in ‘Jewface’ scandal storm’ got my click. Well done, The Guardian, well done.
When I read the latest headline from Sam Brooks, I laughed and thought, “Yeah, right”. Then I read his piece, and I like what he says. So, next time I’m at the cinema and I take the seats right up close at the front, here’s why.
Fan outcries can work, people: cult Netflix series Warrior Nun was cancelled after two seasons. Now, it’s coming back as a movie trilogy.
Finally, if you’ve ever wondered how they make the survivalist show Alone (it’s like extreme Survivor, and three seasons are on TVNZ+) you’re in luck: Vulture has an incredibly deep-dive into the making of the show, including evacuations, fires and bear attacks.
That’s it for Rec Room for this week. If you liked what you read, why not share Rec Room with your friends and whānau.
