KEY POINTS:
Fear inevitably creeps in when a new local drama arrives on our screens. In the case of TV2's Karaoke High (7pm weeknights, until Jan 5) the Fame-style soap filling in while Shortland Street takes a break, it's all the more nerve-racking given its large cast of (mostly) unknowns.
In the first half-hour they would need to convince viewers to emotionally invest in their characters for 15 episodes.
Thankfully, Karaoke High - about a group of students at performing arts school - has already proved itself one of the freshest things on the box.
The concept makes a nice change, wrapping the ambition of NZ Idol, the glamour of Dancing with the Stars and the teen drama of Home & Away into one slick, pacy half-hour.
As we get a crash course on the colourful cast of students auditioning to get into the fictional Kingston Academy (nicknamed Karaoke High by those who don't get in), we also get ballet, hip-hop, rap and classical, sometimes in the space of a single performance.
It's thanks to the writers and the multi-talented cast that it's not gratuitous.
When Charlie (Julia Walshaw) is refused an audition by ex-Royal Ballet tutor Angela (played by a suitably steely Miriama Smith), she enlists the help of possible love interest Callum and does an impressive, impromptu performance in the carpark to get her attention. When the show's resident jock Hone (Vanepale Sopoaga) wants to show off, he and his mates start breakdancing in the school quad.
It's probably not the kind of behaviour you'd expect to see at most high schools, and occasionally you want to slap the coolies for their smugness but it sure is more fun to watch than surgery.
And where there's no performing, the relationships are dense enough to give the show three weeks of momentum. For instance, there's the culturally mixed, new Faiva family (the parents played by the likeable Ben Baker and Sally Stockwell), who have already set themselves up as a hotbed of drama.
Although the writing team includes Neighbours and Home & Away scribes, the dialogue is colloquially Kiwi, and even more risque than Shortland Street.
That means you hear a lot of "bro"s, a smattering of "piss off"s and even a "bonk", care of Phil Brown's music teacher, David, who enjoyed a Grey's Anatomy-type moment with Angela the night before school starts.
But the funniest line so far goes to Hone, whose explanation as to why he's not wearing his ballet tights in class is, "I don't wanna get the ladies too excited."
There are a few minor quibbles. The lighting in the otherwise convincing interior set occasionally gives it away as just that. The funky original music can overpower some scenes rather than enhance them. Same goes for a few oddly zooming camera angles.
But Karaoke High is just the kind of light entertainment it sets out to be. It's not hard to get hooked.
