Tag Archives: Claudia O’Doherty

New Zealand Spy: Season 1 – TV Review

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TL;DR – A delightfully silly exploration of the world of spying through a Kiwi lens.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I viewed this on ABC iView.

New Zealand Spy over a view of mountains.

New Zealand Spy Review Introduction –

There is a wide range of ways you can attack the spy genre, and time and time again has shown that farce is a perfectly valid way of achieving that. Today, we are looking at an example of this from my next-door neighbours, and all-round nice guys, New Zealand, who hopefully won’t betray that kindness by casting the Australians as the bad guys.  

So, to set the scene, a man clad in white races down a side of a mountain in skis as bullets fly. Michael Brown (Paul Williams) wants to be a spy; good thing there are only three applicants for five positions, so he just got lucky. After training, Michael is sent on his first mission to Queenstown, with Sue Nightingale (Rose Matafeo) and Michael Anderson (Joe Thomas), to see why the head of Australian Intelligence just touched down. Though maybe the training to be a spy should be longer than two weeks? Now, from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Sunny Nights: Season 1 – TV Review

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TL;DR – This is a profoundly chaotic show, some of that is intentional amusement, and some of that is unintentional interactions of tone and pacing.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Stan service that viewed this series.

Will Forte looks at a snow globe covered in blood.

Sunny Nights Review –

There are times when a single pitch is enough to get you to take a chance on something: Will Forte and D’Arcy Carden are siblings who get in over their heads with Rachel House, a mobster, as they try to push their spray tan business in Sydney. That is a sentence that makes you want to see how the hell they pull such a chaotic idea off. Well, it worked for me if nothing else.

So, to set the scene, American siblings Martin (Will Forte) and Vicki Marvin (D’Arcy Carden) have moved their spray tan business, Tansform, to Sydney, Australia. Martin is going to get back with his wife after they separated and she moved to Sydney. Vicki is there to help get out of the life she’s in and make some bank. However, they are both profoundly outside of their element, even before Martin gets catfished, and all of a sudden, they are up to their ears in debt and might just have the mob after them all because of an exploding crocodile. Now, from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.  

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