TV One gave Aotearoa the chance to show it’s ‘got talent’ via two top-rating series of the UK-spawned format. This excerpt from the final of the 2013 season is the opening segment, where the last of the finalists are found, and host Tamati Coffey introduces the  judges: model/actor Rachel Hunter, musician Jason Kerrison and international guest, choreographer Cris Judd (J.Lo's ex). The performers, ranging from a hip hop dance crew to an opera singer, compete for a Toyota RAV4 and $100,000 cash. The eventual winner was Renee Maurice from Wellington.

This 2006 documentary is a portrait of one of New Zealand politics' most contradictory figures: unionist Ken Douglas. At the time of filming Douglas occupied numerous board positions (eg Air New Zealand, the NZ Rugby Football Union), but early on he was a truckie and Marxist. Rob Muldoon branded him 'Red Ken'. For 15 years until 1999 he led the Council of Trade Unions. Directed by Monique Oomen for Top Shelf Productions, the film is framed around interviews with Douglas and his colleagues, and asks whether he is a turncoat or a strategic realist moving with the times.

"I like uncovering people and getting them to fess up to **** and to be more real with themselves." So said Anika Moa to TV Guide of her late night Māori TV talk show. In the first episode, the forthright Moa has two Real Housewives of Auckland on the couch. Moa trades laughs with champagne fan Anna Batley Burton, while Gilda Fitzpatrick shows actor Madeleine Sami the high life, and Sami shows her the thug life. There’s giant knitting needles and innuendo; hip hop artist Kings performs hit 'Don’t Worry Bout It', and The Spinoff’s Alex Casey previews Sensing Murder. 

Television talent show franchises like Got Talent and X Factor won huge global popularity in the first two decades of the 21st Century. In 2016 the format got an Aotearoa twist with this Māori Television series: each contestant’s routine had to include kapa haka. Hosted by Kimo Houltham, this first episode sees Norris Studios (jazz ballet), Mana Wairua (contemporary), and Sovreign (hip hop) compete to see who has "haka flair". Manu Wairua’s World War II-inspired act and Sovreign’s rākau (Māori weaponry) skills saw the judges send them to the quarter finals.

In this first episode of the 2015 Māori Television series, three rangitahi answer a Facebook call for sailors who are up for reconnecting with nature and their culture, on a six week waka journey circumnavigating the North Island. The te ao Māori twist on the fish out of water reality show sees a trio of young Māori (including Boy discovery Rickylee Russell-Waipuka) set sail on Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr’s waka Haunui, where they’re separated from social media, face seasickness and rough seas, and learn the "ancient laws of voyaging". The winner gets the chance to join a voyage to Rarotonga.

Coming Home chronicled Kiwi successes abroad, by profiling New Zealanders living and working overseas, then following them back to Aotearoa when they made a return visit. Each episode of the Touchdown Productions series was grouped roughly geographically, with two or three expat New Zealanders featured per episode. Among those reminiscing upon home and opportunity were businesswoman Mary Quin, motor racing legend Steve Millen, journalist Peter Arnett, model Kylie Bax, psychologist John Money, law lecturer Judith Mayhew and singer Patrick Power.

Film director Roger Donaldson and motor racing legend Steve Millen both began making their mark in New Zealand, before making the move to California. The first Coming Home episode sees them at work in the USA, and visiting old haunts in Aotearoa. Donaldson shoots the effects-heavy Dante's Peak and prepares $100 million thriller Thirteen Days, while Millen hits the race track, in-between running his custom car parts company. Later he returns to the farm near Auckland, where his need for speed began on the family tractor. Donaldson heads to Auckland and Queenstown.

In this two-part Lookout documentary from 1983, critic Hamish Keith explores how New Zealanders have housed themselves over the 20th Century. This first part builds to 1935: it begins in Auckland War Memorial Museum, with Keith asking how Kiwis would represent themselves if they were curators in the future. He presents the state house as the paramount Kiwi icon, and examines the journey from Victorian slums and Queen Street sewers to villas, bungalows and suburbia; plus the impact on housing of cars, consumerism, influenza, war, depression, and new ideas in town planning.

This 1983 Hamish Keith-presented documentary is subtitled 'Housing New Zealand in the Twentieth Century'. Part two picks up from Michael Joseph Savage’s 1930s state housing scheme. Keith argues that as the emphasis shifted from renting to owning, middle class suburbia became the foundation of Kiwi postwar aspirations. He looks at changing demographics in the cities — as home owners fled on newly built motorways — and argues that the suburban ideal has become bland and out of reach, as New Zealand once again becomes a country of “mean streets and mansions”.

This bloopers reel comes from a 1998 episode of the pioneering series for rangatahi, which explored te ao Māori (the Māori world) and pop culture. Named 'Mai Stakes', the outtakes montage includes presenters Stacey Daniels Morrison, Teremoana Rapley, Kimo Winiata, Bennett Pomana and Jared Pitman. Daniels Morrison nails her reo, but takes her wig off with her hoodie; and Pitman struggles to get his lines out. The soundtrack is The Jacksons 'Blame It on The Boogie', but the presenters have no one but themselves to blame for these bloopers!