"As dark as Twilight, as twisted as Twin Peaks, and as bitchy as Gossip Girl" is David Stubbs' summary of the series he co-created, produced and directed with Tom Robins for Krafthaus Films. Beautiful but doomed Beth Connolly (played by the coincidentally named Beth Chote) washes up in Kafkaesque suburban Porirua, where folks are understandably freaked out by her dead-on resemblance to missing schoolgirl Tara. The winner of an International Digital Emmy in 2010, the series originally screened in 2009 and has since been sold to Swedish channel SVT.

This series of five stand-alone, observational documentaries was made by TVNZ and screened in late 1988. According to producer Alan Thurston, the aim of its fly on the wall approach was to let the story unfold without reporter presence so the audience could “share the experience rather than be told about it”. The subjects were adoption and a birth mother’s search for her daughter, the changing face of Auckland’s Ponsonby Road, life on Pitt Island, a Graham Dingle trek for young offenders and a community centre in the Wellington suburb of Porirua.

Screening each weekend after TV One's primetime news, Sunday mixes New Zealand stories with reports from overseas. The local contributions have ranged from celebrity interviews, to reports that took months to put together (including award-winning pieces on the 2008 Chinese poisoned milk scandal, and how patients were treated at Porirua Hospital). Over the years, Sunday's roster of journalists has included veterans John Hudson, Janet McIntyre, Ian Sinclair, and current presenter Miriama Kamo. The show has played in both hour and half-hour formats.   

Audiences first discovered dysfunctional Samoan-Kiwi family The Semisis via 90s sketch comedy series Skitz. In 1996 they got their own spin-off show. A talent-heavy cast found themselves lobbing lines and props in each other's direction: future Naked Samoans Dave Fane and Robbie Magasiva, performer Jackie Clarke, and Hori Ahipene, as the family matriach. Creators Dave Armstrong and Kerry Jimson got input for storylines from the cast, director Danny Mulheron and a group of young Samoans from Porirua. Seven episodes were made by Wellington's Gibson Group. 

Tangata Whenua was a groundbreaking six-part documentary series that screened (remarkably in primetime) in 1974. Each episode chronicled a different iwi and included interviews by historian Michael King with kaumātua. These remain a priceless historical record. The Feltex Award-winning script was by King and director Barry Barclay. The NZBC said the series had "possibly done more towards helping the European understand the Māori people, their traditions and way of life, than anything else previously shown on television". Paul Diamond writes about Tangata Whenua here.