Paradise, Conchords

Prime TV’s big push continues with the launch in NZ of Flight of the Conchords, the HBO series showcase for Wellytown’s favourite sons Bret and Jemaine. Episode one screened earlier tonight. This episode had earlier been released into the wilds of the internets and I watched it on some YouTube clone ages back. Let me say this: watching it on a proper tellyvision with proper sound was much, much better. It made me laugh like a laughing man. Quality, quality stuff, and so Kiwi that it kinda shocks me. The full TV screen let me read the text on the promotional tourism posters in the NZ Consulate: “New Zealand – Like Lord of the Rings” was my favourite.
Nice one lads. UK readers will be pleased to hear it’s turning up on BBC Four on Sept 25.
Prime led into Conchords with its big new hope, Welcome To Paradise. We don’t do the trad sitcom well in this country, for whatever reason. Now and then something will click, but usually it has to break the format in some way to do it (stand up Lovebites and Seven Periods With Mr Gormsby). More often our sitcoms just clunk.
This one isn’t a Melody Rules-level stinker (the nadir of NZ TV comedy, a sitcom so bad that it actually destroyed comedy in this country for about five years, and if you think I’m exaggerating you clearly weren’t there), by any means. There were some nice bits of business and some promising moments, but it really had some problems, including – and this is the really unfortunate thing – the first five minutes. The opening minutes of a new comedy are crucial, but WTP really didn’t sell itself. Thankfully it settled down as it went along, which I think is the key to this sort of comedy in NZ – you need to undersell the gags or it just doesn’t work. Also, would it really have hurt to actually cast someone Irish to play the core character who’s Irish? Overall, I’m hesitant to say it’s going to be worth sticking with, but it’s early days and I’ll give it another look for sure. It has the best timeslot a Kiwi comedy could wish for, anyway.
Oh, the premise of WTP is “humour in a Kiwi backpackers hostel”. The Alligator knows that this is biting the turf of Kumara Junction, but we have to accept that, because Kumara Junction doesn’t exist. Yet.