A thick, oppressive layer of cloud hung low over the valley the entire time Gary was there. It couldn't help but made the place seem completely miserable. Chloe's neighbour's kid got the mumps.
Despite being an earnest attempt to dispel the negative stereotypes around Wainuiomata the show ended up being seen as perpetuating them. Locals were outraged, and Trevor Mallard, then as now the local MP, lodged a formal complaint with the Broadcasting Standards Authority.
Two decades later, long-serving Lotto lady Sonia Gray returns to the Lower Hutt suburb for Neighbourhood - a sort of hyper-local modern version of Heartland nestled away at 11.30 on Sunday mornings on TV One. Each week a different personality conducts a leisurely tour of the area in which they live, or in Sonia's case, grew up.
The depiction of Wainuiomata is much less controversial this time around. Where Heartland was a prime time blockbuster, Neighbourhood is made specifically for the Sunday morning timeslot. Watching it can have an almost sedative effect. It's full of slow motion, artfully blurry shots coming into focus, soothing waiting room music wafting in the background.
A hypnotic slow motion shot of Sonia's suede high heel boots leads us to the house of Pati Umaga, bassist on The Holidaymakers' 1987 number one Sweet Lovers. He plays along to the music video on his computer and recalls his most important contribution to a song which picked up eight gongs at the New Zealand Music Awards. "There was a part in that song where there was a gap," he explains. "I put a pop in there."
The visit takes an unexpectedly emotional turn when Pati talks about how he ended up in a wheelchair. He just slipped over in the shower one day. The event is timestamped in his memory: "2005, May 26, at approximately ten past eight in the morning". Now he works as a disability advocate for the Pacific community. He says it's important for him to remain visible, a role model for young people with disabilities, so he keeps on gigging, popping the bass.
Pati's cousin Tana Umaga was in Sonia's year at school. The pair were voted 'best bodies' in their seventh form yearbook. His portrait now hangs on the wall of the gym alongside those of what must be a disproportionately high number of sporting stars the suburb has produced.
From school to the shops, Sonia retraces the steps of her youth and bumps into some old friends at what was once "the heart of our social world." "What did we used to do here?" she wonders. "Follow around boys," is all anyone can remember, and a slightly eerie slow motion shot pans across the three of them smiling as if waiting for a someone to take a photo.
We visit a family who moved from South Africa in 2006 to set up a home in the hills behind Wainuiomata, a spirited woman from Idaho who still uses her grandmother's old copper tub, and a woman who once scored perfect 10s on My Kitchen Rules for her Laotian grilled pork larb. She massages a huge, steaming plate of rice in dreamlike slow motion. They all seem quite happy living in this once maligned suburb, which like so many others in New Zealand is growing increasingly multicultural.
Do they still have epic piss-ups at the rugby league club? Is there still a big market for erotic candles? Did that poor little girl ever recover from the mumps?
It's barely recognisable from the Heartland episode. Wisely, they seem to have filmed in summer. There's no sign or even mention of Chloe, or any of the other 'Wainuiomartians' who caused such a fuss for whatever reason 21 years ago.
- nzherald.co.nz
