Posts by James Griffin
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There is no doubt. There is no slaughter. No puppies were harmed in the making of this show. We had nothing to do with the recent spate of fatalities among legendary film directors.
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I'm not sure I like the sound of something hard being thrown at my head - and I'd probably like the feel of it even less. And I don't think Jane would approve either.
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I don't know much about history pre-__I Love Lucy__ so how did this "Panem et circenses" thing turn out for the Romans, then? And was it in the series of the same name or did I miss that bit?
It sounds like fun, though.
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Oh my goodness... I'm having a Life On Mars moment.
It's 1970. I'm 8. Standing with my parents in a really long queue outside the New Zealand pavilion at Expo 70 in Osaka.
Inside there are three screens. Amazing. And that music. And all these images. And all these Japanese people and these three Kiwis from Hastings watching our country - on three screens at once! It was, I recall, very cool.
Then, I think, I had Pepsi for the first time. When you're 8 weird things like that stick in the memory.
I really do feel the need to lie down now.
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So is the next story-in-waiting how much Rickards will get when he PERFs?
You'd have to think that being a long-serving senior officer...plus (as I understand it) the Government's 2-for-1 top-up of the Police Employment Rehabilitation Fund...
We're probably talking a fair whack of dosh here. Aren't we?
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I don't know, I was asleep at that hour of the morning. Yes, most definitely. I have no idea - if they invested in inner-city real estate I guess they'll be okay (and it's Kellett, by the way). Probably not. Undoubtedly. Yes, but a lousy partner. Yes, but not on Shortland Street.
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12%??? I dream of 12%! When you get to the Sophie's Choice situation where the infernal machine tells you 'if you want to record the Ugly Betty pilot then you must sacrifice that episode of Lost you're sure will make sense of everything' then you truly know you have a personal viewing problem to go with your PVR.
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I don't think they give 10th anniversary specials to shows that were flogged to death in front of the viewing public.
Of much more intrigue is the fact that 2007 (somewhere round October, I think) is the 20th anniversary of Gloss going to air.
Hands up all those who would like to find out what the Redfern family and nefarious associates are up to these days?
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It's ancient history, so what the hell...
It started life with the working title Twenty-odd; then it morphed into 96 Oriental Parade when it was going to be set in Wellington; then it came back to Auckland and became City Life. It was, originally, much more about the day-to-day life of being in your twenties and behaving badly and making shit decisions. But the network kept using the words Melrose and Place, which was rather disconcerting.
All of which is indicative that, yes, there were many forces (usually coming from conflicting directions) at work on the series. Weird things happened - like, I remember, we were forced to take the scripts for episodes 2 & 3 and turn them into one new episode 2 that was going to be the paciest thing on TV (because that's what the programming people wanted - pace, pace, pace!) Too much pace (coupled with a shooting style that was, to say the least, eccentric) doesn't necessarily make something any better, was the lesson learned here.
It was a very odd show to work on. The oddest day was turning up for work and being asked if I was coming to the meeting. What meeting, I asked. The meeting where everyone was being told the series was being dumped from its timeslot, I was told. Its always nice when you're the last one to find out.
I later found out there was a senior TVNZ executive (now departed these shores) who said I would never write for another TV show as long as I lived, all because of City Life
Funny funny funny old world.
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It got caned (rather than canned) for being too everything. Then it got shifted to a later time slot where it saw out its final days. Then it sold all over the world. Go figure.