Four seasons - outrageous

Outrageous Fortune writer James Griffin. Photo / Greg Bowker

Outrageous Fortune writer and Canvas columnist James Griffin on that rarest of New Zealand television drama experiences: what it's like to be up to your fourth season of a hit show

Holy crap, as Cheryl might say. Series four! Which means there have been 51 episodes and a Christmas special leading up to here. Cripes.

I remember sitting down with John Barnett, the Big Cheese at South Pacific Pictures, who make Outrageous Fortune, before episode one of series one went to air. He was talking to me about the very real possibility - almost an expectation, really - that something as leftfield as a show about a bunch of potty-mouthed Westies who forever flirted with the wrong side of the law, might not last past that one series.

And I had to agree with him. We (the people making the beast) really had no idea how OF was going to be received. We knew we liked what we'd created, we knew it made us laugh, and we knew we were proud of it, in all its misshapen beauty - but we had completely no idea whether anyone else would get it, let alone love it. We were just going on gut instinct.

I guess the most important thing at this stage was whether or not TV3 actually loved OF (I'm pretty sure they did), they stood by it and promoted it and let it grow into the creature it has become. Personally, the real affirmation we were doing something right here was when the notes/instructions from TV3 for series two amounted to "carry on doing what you're doing" and for series three were "you know what you're doing, go away and do it some more".

Believe me when I say there is no greater accolade makers of any form of TV can get than when a network trusts them to go away and do what they do best.

About a year ago, as we approached the writing of series four of Outrageous Fortune (episodes 52 to 69), we were acutely aware that we were entering relatively uncharted waters, in terms of an hour-long episodic New Zealand drama series. Doubts, inevitably, started to creep in. Would the gift that was the West family keep on giving? What if we got halfway through and the story cupboard was bare; the Old Trout, her brood and their dodgy associates had nicked all the silverware?

As one of the pimps who make their living touting the West family round town, I'm pleased to report none of this came to pass. There is plenty of life left in these old dogs. There's a kind of cocky swagger to these characters now that makes it a pleasure to throw them up against each other to see what happens. Especially when Wolf is back.

As series four is about to go to air, I still feel like I did in the beginning. I still have no idea if it's going to work. Yeah, we're that much more experienced when it comes to making OF and there's obviously a head of steam that has built up around the show, but it's a beast that runs on gut instinct and doesn't play by any rules I know of.

Of course, it'll be the audience who has the final say as to whether Outrageous Fortune continues to do the business through this series.

Just in case the time has come for us to move the Wests to fresher, greener pastures, I've already started writing the spin-off series. Van and Munter, having a night in the country to enjoy herbal refreshments, encounter a mysterious green light. When they awake, they are aboard a spaceship, in the anal probing room, their pants round their ankles. Even they know it can't be good. I have a gut feeling this is a series that could really work.