Tova O'Brien made her debut as co-host on TVNZ's Breakfast on Monday, alongside Chris Chang.
The nation had spent all of summer and most of autumn anticipating the opening banter break between Tova O’Brien and Chris Chang.
It was smiley and upbeat and inoffensive. He welcomed her and she made a little joke about “dragging the chain” even though we all knew she’d been legally restrained from starting sooner. Chang said something about the journey they were going on. She called it a winding road. He said: “It’s a show like no other.”
Even though I’d specifically asked my family to leave me alone so I could focus on this review, my wife interjected: “Is it a show like no other? I think it’s like a lot of others.”
I ignored her.
“Importantly,” Chang went on, “how did you sleep?”
What happened next was arguably the most important moment of the whole show and maybe of O’Brien’s entire Breakfast tenure because it set the tone, laid down a marker, told the audience exactly who she is and what to expect.
You’ve probably asked and answered the question “How did you sleep?” hundreds of times in your life. You know the routine. It’s basic small talk: predictable, throwaway, meaningless. Few people have ever answered, as O’Brien did at 6.01am today: “It was iterative.”
I was so shocked I had to go back and watch it again. She had come correct and she had not come to mess around and in case you missed that message, she delivered it again later in the show when she said, during an interview with Helen Clark about the US war on Iran: “Is that a risk analysis? That we don’t want to p*** off the US and the US President too much.”
“P*** off”! To the former Prime Minister and former third most powerful person at the UN! It was hard to imagine that one wouldn’t be brought up in the post-match debrief with the producers and assorted TVNZ fat cats. But it was also hard to imagine them pushing too hard. As had been “iterative”, it felt like a line in the sand. You want Tova O’Brien? You got Tova O’Brien.
Clark was her second live interview of the morning with a Prime Minister; the first was with the current one, who had turned up with the pre-prepared adlib remark: “Welcome to the first day at your new school!”. Did that p*** her off? Hard to say, but he was the one who got schooled when he made the mistake of saying: “My job is the CEO,” and she retorted: “Your job is the Prime Minister!”
She didn’t let him get away with diversionary talking points, repeating questions on issues including road user charges and sending troops to the Middle East until he near-enough answered. When he claimed we were moving quicker than other countries in dealing with the oil crisis, she replied that other countries are also moving faster.
He was clearly relieved to be lobbed a softball question about e-scooters at the end of the interview, which he bunted to Chang, whom he called “mate”.
But she was not all hardball questions and not p***ing around. This is a show for people who want the hosts to be their friends on the TV and that is a register she both knows how to do and is good at.
She offered many fascinating insights into her life and thinking, including the revelation she had set four different alarms in four different parts of her house to ensure she got to work on time this morning. Why is she sleeping in four different parts of her house? No wonder her sleep is iterative.
The show ended on what looked like a softball interview with former Wiggle and now solo performer Emma Memma, who had just received an All Blacks jersey with her name on the back and was here promoting some music box thing. The three of them chit-chatted about how wonderful everything had been and Memma gave her prepared spiel on the box, and O’Brien said: “This is useful for parents who want to keep kids away from screens for a bit longer.”
It felt like a paid advertorial and was a disappointing end to an invigorating morning. But then, O’Brien pivoted: “When do you think kids should get involved in screens?”
There were fewer than 2 minutes before the show’s end. You could almost hear the sharp intake of breath around the studio and in the offices of the fat cats upstairs. A celebrated children’s entertainer who has built her career by keeping children on screens, comes on TVNZ’s light morning magazine programme and is suddenly held to account and plunged into arguably the issue of our times.
“Ooooooh!” Memma replied, looking nervously at Chang.
“Big question!” Chang said.
“That’s really controversial!” Memma said.
She squirmed out of the question with a diversionary pivot to the importance of visibility for sign language, and Chang threw her another question about sign language and the tension eased and all that was left was to find a way out.
Chang thanked viewers for joining them. He told O’Brien she smashed it.
“You feeling alright?” he asked her.
“Woo! Yeah!” she said. “Just gonna crumble into a little pile.” She mimed crumbling.
“We’ll do it all again tomorrow,” he said.
She beamed. It had been a wild three-hour ride: enthralling, enlightening and amusing and, most of all, iterative.
Tova O’Brien and Chris Chang host Breakfast on TVNZ1, weekdays from 6am-9am