Suburban spats take us from eh? to zzzzz

Karen embraces her eccentricity but her singing at all hours drives neighbours Colin and Cindy crazy. Photo / TVNZ

'Neighbours. Sure they're fine now, but what about when we're all living underwater?" asks Bill Kerton, presenting a premise more exciting than the one about to be retread more times than a farmer pacing a fence. In its 10th year, Neighbours at War returned last week, and set a pace as slow as rush hour in Owhango.

Neighbours at War is a reality series that settles petty suburban disputes in small New Zealand towns. From driveway debacles to pornography over the picket fence, the show provides a wildly public platform to air out this (sometimes literally) dirty laundry. But has it done its dash?

Last week we travelled to Owhango, a stagnated town with a snow gear shop, a normal shop, and nothing else but mild neighbourhood tension. Colin and Cindy are the complainants, annoyed by their neighbour Karen's obnoxious early morning singing, loud stereo blasting, and boundary fence invading. Sound like a boring dispute? You'd be right.

What has continuously saved this show from just being a form-filling council nightmare is the characters involved. The "classic cards" of the Kiwi television cannon. Karen fulfils this role, from her small red tricycle to her huge Bob Marley polar fleece. She's the New Zealand we still want more of: eccentric, unforgiving, and otherwise never on our TV screens in primetime.

"If she was a bloke, I'd probably hit her," Colin says furiously. Karen's just there to enjoy the tuis, pigeons, bush and semi-successful snow shop industry. She does quite a ropey impression of an Indian accent, and calls her next-door naggers "whinging poms". It's increasingly hard to get behind her as the plucky rural protagonist.

Bill Kerton's dry-as-dust voiceover leads us through the disagreement, pushing the boundaries of hyperbole and sprinkling surrealism over the most mundane. He claims proudly that Karen vs. Colin and Cindy is getting as bad as The Middle East. I'm grateful that this doesn't air in Syria.

Embracing the reconstruction, Neighbours at War's re-enacted incidents relish in this terrible lost television art. It's just a shame recreating someone waking up to stones being thrown on their roof is worse than watching paint dry (we can look forward to that in The Block NZ). "Who is throwing stones on my roof?" Karen declares rhetorically to no one. I feel the stones of time chipping away at the roof of my life.

The situation clearly needs some outside eyes. And not mine, because they're closed. The city-slicker mediators are often notable New Zealand "good sorts". This week it is ex Police 10-7 host and former detective Graham Bell.

Wrangling our tiffing stone-throwers into a school hall, they perch on too-small chairs. Colin declares Karen is a snake in the grass, going to stab him in the back. I'm impressed this alleged snake can hold a knife, let alone reach a man's back. Everyone yells that the other is lying, followed by moments of long, bored silence.

I'm pretty convinced Graham Bell has gone to sleep, and had his eyes fixed in post-production. "Are you happy to not sing before 8am?" he asks Karen. She agrees, and he suggests they replace the boundary fence and "get on with life". I'm happy for them, but I felt the exact same way. I need to get on with life.

When John and Yoko wrote Happy Xmas (War Is Over), I think they were unfortunately referring to this national treasure of a TV show. A more frightening threat than Marmageddon, I fear New Zealand could be running out of interesting suburban spats to put on telly, and that provincial peace may soon be upon us.