It was the food safety advice that echoed across the globe. The late night footage of an Auckland policeman interrogating a suspected car thief on this long-running crime series seemed routine, until conversation shifted to the purchase of a pie at a local service station. The officer's deadpanned response came straight out of left field — and went viral (interestingly, only after a repeat screening of the show was posted online). The 'nek minnit' catchphrase of its day provided global news odd spot fodder, and inspired t-shirts, dubstep tracks and YouTube parodies.

Designed to inspire school leavers to find their career, Pathways sees a selection of young New Zealanders talk about their job paths. The pilot episode of this 1994 Careers NZ resource is bookended with a 'mini-drama' about young people flatting together, which includes some familiar faces. Karl Urban plays lazy surfer Wayne, while Robbie Magasiva is the sales assistant whose plans of climbing the career ladder go awry. Marcus Lush plays a DJ who links a series of interviews with people either working or training. Later Lush interviews experts on youth employment prospects.

The Italian Job meets cheap jugs and a student union gig in this early heist tale from Geoff Murphy (Goodbye Pork Pie). The plot follows some university students — short on exam fees and beer money — and their scheme to crack a campus safe. Murphy enlisted $4000 and a bevy of mates (including Bruno Lawrence in one of his earliest screen roles), and made it over nine months of weekends. It sold to local television (as well as the ABC in Australia). Its deliberately low key, naturalistic acting stood in stark contrast to the stage-influenced television dramas of the time.

Independent television network TV3 launched its prime time news bulletin on 27 November 1989, a day after the channel first went to air. Veteran broadcaster Philip Sherry anchors a reporting team that includes future politician Tukoroirangi Morgan (probing kiwi poaching), Ian Wishart (investigating traffic cop-dodging speedsters) and future newsroom boss Mark Jennings (torture in Timaru). Belinda Todd handles the weather, and Janet McIntyre reports on TV3's launch. The Kiwi cricket team faces defeat in Perth (although history will record a famous escape there). 

In April 1984 Poi-E was atop the NZ music charts, with ‘Jo the breakdancer’ starring in the song's music video. So it's apt that this edition of the TVNZ youth show looks at “the craze currently sweeping New Zealand — breakdancing”. In her first presenting gig, future MTV host Phillipa Dann heads to Mangere to bop and head-spin. Elsewhere in this season opener, David Hindley reports on a School Certificate controversy, and why young drivers are dying on country roads. Co-presenting back in Viewfinder’s Dunedin studio is Uelese Petaia (star of movie Sons for the Return Home).

Our Small World is a portrait of life on an atoll in Tokelau — on Fale, an island so small, the schoolhouse had to be built on the next island, and the pigs live on the reef. Narrated by Tokelau-born Ioane Puka on a return visit, the film examines old traditions meeting pressures from the outside world, an emphasis on self-sufficiency and togetherness, and worries over education and a declining, youth-heavy population. Key decisions are made by a group of male elders, although after initial doubts, they have accepted a woman police officer.

Attitude is a weekly series looking at the issues and interests of people living with a disability. This episode features Kiwi teenager George Cairney, who suffered a serious head injury after getting into a car with a drunk driver. The 19-year-old now has a child-like personality, and has to re-learn everything. Also featured is a story on two former NYC police officers who were among the first responders to the Twin Towers terror attack. The pair talk about the health issues and post-traumatic stress disorder they and their colleagues suffer.

In this episode of the early 80s TVNZ high country drama (penned by Pukemanu writer Julian Dickon and directed by Roger Donaldson), Jocko (Bruce Allpress) is reunited with two fellow Korean War veterans — but one is now an escaped convict and the other a police officer heading the manhunt. Stan, another escapee (a suitably manic Bruno Lawrence), stirs things up but the real drama here involves unfinished business for three former soldiers from a conflict 25 years earlier. It’s also very much a man’s world, without a single female character to be seen.

In this episode of youth show in beTWEEN, model and TV presenter Anna Reeve (née Fitzpatrick) is interviewed about being bullied at school because of her hair loss through alopecia, also known as spot baldness. Kids in the studio confess to bullying, and when they were bullied. Two sisters take on a challenge to be nice to each other for a week, while police officer Dean talks about an anti-bullying school programme called Kia Kaha. Hosted by Julia Bloore (née Wright) and Jeremy Hollis, in betWEEN was presented in front of a live studio audience of nine to 13-year-olds — or "tweens". 

During the Dawn Raids of the mid 1970s, police systematically raided the homes and workplaces of suspected Pacific Island overstayers. Milk & Honey follows one such raid, as a pregnant Samoan woman (Nora Aati) is taken into custody by two police officers. Despite assurances of a misunderstanding, she is denied a call to her husband. This does not sit well with Constable Salevao (Robbie Magasiva). Made as part of director Marina McCartney’s Masters in Screen Production at Auckland University, it was nominated for Best Short Film at the 2012 NZ International Film Festival.