Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
⭐️ Staff Pick: NZ On Screen’s Web editor Mitch chose ‘Shortland Street’.
“‘Shortland Street’ hit our screens the same year I hit Te Whanganui-a-Tara to start university. We had three TV rooms in my student hostel – one for each channel – and I never got into Coro so Shorty was my only chance to bond with a series and my housemates, way back before streaming had even been thought of. Destination viewing at its finest, ‘Shortland Street’ also had the cringe factor that only watching our wooden country-fellows on screen could give thespian-adjacent humanities students in the 90s. And then my politics lecturer proudly declared that Michael Galvin was her stepson. I was starstruck.
I've stuck with the show for decades, even watching it on YouTube and using a VPN to keep up on demand while living overseas. It felt like taking the temperature of middle New Zealand from afar, plus over the years, many of my friends have popped up in the frame in Ferndale, so it really was like keeping in touch. I got back here just in time for the gritty, filmic reboot in 2022 (loved it), and many friends reached out last year when the show got cut to three nights a week (still hate this – bring it back, TVNZ).
This clip has it ALL: Chris Warner pre-crisis beard, dastardly hottie Victor Kahu, Waverley in the wings, and a packed audience of early career legends and losers alike all cheering on the best/worst local screen rap since the breakdancing milk bottle ads of the 80s.”
See it in full at NZ On Screen.
#shortlandstreet
⭐️ Staff Pick: NZ On Screen’s Web editor Mitch chose ‘Shortland Street’.
“‘Shortland Street’ hit our screens the same year I hit Te Whanganui-a-Tara to start university. We had three TV rooms in my student hostel – one for each channel – and I never got into Coro so Shorty was my only chance to bond with a series and my housemates, way back before streaming had even been thought of. Destination viewing at its finest, ‘Shortland Street’ also had the cringe factor that only watching our wooden country-fellows on screen could give thespian-adjacent humanities students in the 90s. And then my politics lecturer proudly declared that Michael Galvin was her stepson. I was starstruck.
I've stuck with the show for decades, even watching it on YouTube and using a VPN to keep up on demand while living overseas. It felt like taking the temperature of middle New Zealand from afar, plus over the years, many of my friends have popped up in the frame in Ferndale, so it really was like keeping in touch. I got back here just in time for the gritty, filmic reboot in 2022 (loved it), and many friends reached out last year when the show got cut to three nights a week (still hate this – bring it back, TVNZ).
This clip has it ALL: Chris Warner pre-crisis beard, dastardly hottie Victor Kahu, Waverley in the wings, and a packed audience of early career legends and losers alike all cheering on the best/worst local screen rap since the breakdancing milk bottle ads of the 80s.”
See it in full at NZ On Screen.
#shortlandstreet
