The Spinoff's TV Week: Snackable mice and a visit from the Doctor

Some of the best bits from TV this week.

TV obsessed website The Spinoff brings together the best, worst and weirdest moments on television each week. Contributions by Alex Casey and Calum Henderson.

Marvel's Heroically Addictive New Superhero Show

The flow of eminently bingeable TV shows is coming thick and fast from the US these days. Last week it was Master of None, this week it's Jessica Jones that everybody seems to be consuming in frankly quite unhealthy doses.

Part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (full disclosure: I don't really know what this is) it's a sort of realist superhero drama, in which the titular Private Investigator Jessica Jones is haunted by a deeply sinister Englishman called Kilgrave (David Tennant from Doctor Who). Even for a Superhero novice like me it's incredibly addictive - at 13 episodes of 45+ minutes, this kind of thing used to take weeks to watch, but most people seem to already be up to the final episodes. I'm only up to episode four and living in a constant state of fear, both that Kilgrave is going to get Jessica Jones, and that I'm going to accidentally cop a stray spoiler before I get to the end. / CH

WatchMe Launches New Local Content

This week NZME. launched their own online video platform, with 100 per cent local content including the second season of Late Night Big Breakfast and the hallucinatory webseries, Yeti. It's a welcome addition to the television landscape, particularly considering that Leigh Hart and Jason Hoyte were not asked back to TV One after LNBB season one. Here's an excerpt from my review after binge-watching the whole platform (click here for the full piece):

" - that's all we have time for," Leigh Hart butts in, halfway through George's first sentence. This gag is a LNBB classic for a reason. Not only is it funny as hell - albeit a little bit sad - to see their innocent guests looking stumped, it skewers the impossibility of snackability, the ineffectiveness of magazine-style soundbites to ever say anything about anything." (Click here for WatchMe) / AC

The DNA Detectives Hang Up Their Hats

The finale of The DNA Detectives aired on TV One this week, tracing the roots of Sonia Gray and Leigh Hart. As it turned out for Gray, she had a genetic connection to Nelson Mandela, absolutely winning the DNA sweeps for the season. Ironically, the crew were robbed in Pretoria on the day of the Mandela revelation. " That was the biggest, best ever surprise." says Gray, "I actually said, 'nothing will wipe this smile off my face', and then we found out all our stuff had been swiped." She also discovered that her third cousin in Melbourne was an ex-Lotto employee, "those balls are in our DNA FFS." Although the magical series might be over, you can enjoy our own non-celebrity version The DNA Defectives (click here to watch) / AC

HDPA Eats a Mouse

On Monday afternoon, apropos of absolutely nothing that I could determine, Story host Heather "HDPA" Du Plessis-Allan tweeted a photo of herself with what looked like a deep-fried mouse, along with the caption: "Lots of you have asked. Yes, I ate a mouse." Exactly who had been asking this? Nothing in the subsequent banter gave anything away. Why did Heather eat a mouse? It's a question I idly wondered to myself all week. In a way I didn't really want to know that answer. It was just perfectly simple, a complete six-word story: "Heather Du Plessis-Allan ate a mouse". In the end I caved and asked her and she said it was to raise money for World Vision's 40-Hour Famine. / CH

NZ Gets a Visit From the Doctor

Peter Capaldi, AKA the one and only (well, the 12th) Doctor Who, Tardissed his way on to New Zealand shores this week for a one night only event at Auckland's Civic Theatre. The charming Scotsman seemed to cast a spell on everyone who was lucky enough to meet him, not least of whom was Jose Barbosa, with whom he sat down on the waterfront for a chat about his life in television:

"The publicist leaned in to say our time was up. 'Let's have five more minutes,' he said. It turned into 10. I took some pictures with the work DSLR for the website. He pointed at my phone on the table. "Do you want a picture with that?" "I'd tossed up asking for a selfie on the way here," I said, "but decided against it." "Oh, you've got to do it," he grinned. "I fell in love ..." (Click here to read or listen to the full interview.) / CH

Watch: The Block NZ: Villa Wars on TV3 - Previews for Sunday night's kitchen and hallway room reveal episode have included several people bawling their eyes out, and a mysterious marriage proposal.

Binge: Acquitted on Lightbox (click here to watch) - Norway's smash hit drama of 2015, this crime thriller follows a businessman who returns to his hometown to save a company from bankruptcy.

Movie: The Butterfly Effect, 8:30pm Saturday on Choice TV - Who knows what chain of events could be unwittingly set in motion if you watch this instead of whatever else you were going to do on Saturday night?

- The Spinoff