TV obsessed website The Spinoff brings together the best, worst and weirdest moments on television each week. Contributions by Alex Casey and Calum Henderson.
Mike Hosking's brush with death
New Zealand's leading radio broadcaster, television host, newspaper columnist, husband and Ferrari driver bravely stared death in the face on Wednesday morning when a piece of pineapple became lodged in his throat. "I almost died today and my life was saved by Martin Devlin," he told viewers of Seven Sharp that night. "I was choking - have you ever choked?" He was delirious - laughing himself to tears, talking himself senseless, wholly unfit for television. What's new? "I've had a very sore throat all day."
He relived the moment in vivid detail: "This will end positively," he reported himself thinking as he reeled breathlessly around the Newstalk ZB studio. Here was a man who'd just had his greatest suspicion confirmed - that when you think about it, death is nothing more than a state of mind. He lived simply because he didn't believe that he would die. Perhaps there's a lesson in that for all of us. / CH
The 67th Emmy Awards went down on Monday, assembling the biggest and brightest stars of the small screen to watch Andy Samberg motorboat the butt of a giant gold Emmy statue. The big winners on the night were Olive Kitteridge and Transparent, who both received enough golden tat to build that extension onto the pool room.
Elsewhere, we saw a brave and necessary speech from Viola Davis - the first woman of colour to win an Emmy for Best Actress in a drama series - and the surprise return of post car-crash Tracy Morgan to the stage for the first time since his accident. Overall, it was a weirdly uneven ceremony that reinstated one crucial, crushing message: that I still haven't watched enough TV and probably never will. / AC
Dom Harvey's live prostate Story
Over at TV3 they watched Hosking's pineapple episode and realised they had to act fast. They broke out the emergency 20-sided dice - one to decide the Mediaworks talent and the other to decide an attention-grabbing activity. The first roll landed on 'Dom Harvey,' and the second, 'live prostate exam'. Duncan Garner breathed a sigh of relief. "This is a first for me actually, watching another man get a prostate exam," he admitted to Story viewers on Thursday night. "Dom does not mind getting his kit off. He is going to get his kit off," promised Heather du Plessis-Allan, raising her eyebrows so enthusiastically you worried they might fly right off her face.
Things turned strangely sadistic. "We've organised the doctor with the biggest hands possible," she assured viewers as a fully-clothed Harvey hopped up on the examination table. It was over in a matter of seconds. "Pretty much straight in and there's a tiny little wiggle and then out again," Harvey reported. He'd turned it into a teachable moment. Du Plessis-Allan looked crestfallen. Quite what she had imagined a prostate exam entailed may never be known, and probably never should. / CH
X Factor UK's Unstoppable Vortex
Probably nobody in the whole country would have willingly accepted the offer of another season of X Factor after this year's grueling local version. But the reality maniacs at TV3 have forged ahead with X Factor UK on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and now two weeks into the audition stage the show's hypnotic power is taking hold and beginning to suck viewers into its unstoppable vortex. Now into its 12th season, the UK version flows beautifully - easy when you have Simon Cowell, who's still in a class of his own when it comes to this sort of thing, and such an enviably deep pool of singing talent to draw from. It's infinitely less stressful than the NZ version - a bit like watching the NRL playoffs after a season of watching only Warriors games. / CH
Woman Stuns Man by Knowing Things
One of the more degrading things to happen this week was the absolute hoopla made over the fact that Wendy Petrie got some bloody rugby-based questions right at the end of One News. Hosking looked like he was going to choke on a bit of pineapple again and Dallow went absolutely sallow. News alert, men: remembering boring trivia is easy to do no matter what your gender is. For example, E.T. was operated by a boy with no legs on a skateboard, the Battle of Bannockburn was won in 1314, and I once saw Richie McCaw buy a chocolate ice-cream so I'm guessing that's his favourite flavour. That's a rugby fact, so where's my damn viral clip? / AC
Watch:The Brokenwood Mysteries, 7.30pm Saturday on Prime - There's a new dead man in the same old small town, was it an accident or something more... mysterious? Binge:The Mindy Project on Lightbox (click here to watch) - The excellently sunny sitcom has come to Lightbox this week, including season four which has just released in the US Movie:Happy Gilmore - Don't go out and waste your money on Adam Sandler's disastrous Pixels this weekend, just stay in and remember the good golfing times.
