"I was compelled, though very reluctantly, to give my consent to killing my dog, Rover. The flesh of a dog is very palatable, tasting something between mutton and pork." - Thomas Brunner
TV One's First Crossings has proven once again that our love affair with
our own country isn't over yet. We're a self-obsessed bunch, like African dictators or the Ridges, we just can't get enough of ourselves. From the early days of Country Calendar, on shows like Peter Hayden's Journeys Across Latitude 45 South through to Gary's McCormick's finest hour - Heartland, to Marcus Lush on a train; our most loved TV has involved New Zealanders poking about New Zealand.
We do this so often that you almost expect the hosts of First Crossings to run into another film crew coming the other way as they cross the Southern Alps, possibly finding Te Radar eating trail mix, or harassing a chicken, or just researching another award-winning show.
While Heartland celebrated the small towns and backwaters, and the 'characters' within, the more recent crop of shows have found new and often novel ways to divide the country up: Captain's Log followed in the boat-steps of Captain Cook, Hunger for the Wild kept to the wild-food killing-fields of the Taranaki, the Hawkes Bay, the Kaikora - while the spin-off show Coasters, stuck to the west coast. Lush's Off The Rails was probably the most inventive, allowing for a criss-cross journey into the heart of lightness via our anorexic rail network.
You may even recall that John Campbell made his way around our nation via Elizabeth Regina's 1953 visit on A Queen's Tour. I was lucky enough to follow Jeremy Wells around the land using birds as an excuse on Birdland, and more recently Craig Potton used our waterways on Rivers.
Of course, most of these shows have been made before. In 1991 comedian Jon Gadsby explored the Clutha river on Great New Zealand River Journeys, while the late great Kenneth Cumberland examined most of these stories on Landmarks in 1981.
