The St Heliers Bowling Club is the setting of this episode of First Hand, a series dedicated to giving young directors a shot at making documentaries. A triples team from the Remuera Bowling Club have made the short journey to the Auckland seaside suburb, and aim to prove their superiority on the club’s fast greens. The documentary takes time to observe the culture of the club throughout the day’s play, from the variety of whites the players wear and the backgrounds of the members, to their lunchtime rituals and the role of women at the club. It’s all in a lively day’s play. 

By the time Gloss’s second season aired the sharemarket had crashed, but the parade of yuppies, shoulder-pads and champagne went on. This 19 July 1988 episode sees the Redfern family deal with a tragedy; it also features an acting cameo from future weatherman Jim Hickey. In these excerpts Hickey isn’t playing meteorological soothsayer to the nation, but a policeman responding to the mysterious death of Brad Redfern (Michael Keir-Morrissey). He soothes the Redferns, after tossing a coin with a fellow officer for a ride to Remuera in the deceased’s Jaguar.  

This TVNZ show explores 90s grand designs, and the people who live in them. This episode from the fourth season sees Dave Cull quizzing husband and wife architect team Colin and Lindy Leuschke on the challenges of designing their Parnell home, and checks out a pimped up house trailer inspired by technology show Beyond 2000. Jude Dobson visits a Kiwiana classic: Fred and Myrtle Flutey's Bluff paua shell home; and Jim Hickey meets a Remuera reproduction antique importer. The opening titles are a showcase of computer graphics from the era.

Roseanne Liang's documentary Banana in a Nutshell tells the story of her romance with Stephen Harris. After falling in love at university, everything seemed perfect for the pair. Enter Liang’s traditional Chinese parents, and suddenly the prospect of her marriage to a Pākehā got a lot more complicated. In this excerpt, Liang guides viewers through her childhood, romance, and threatened disownment by her parents. Liang added an extended epilogue when her award-winning film hit DVD. The couple's story was later fictionalised for Liang’s 2011 feature My Wedding and Other Secrets. 

Rest for the Wicked showcases an all-star A-team of older Kiwi actors — among them John Bach, Bruce Allpress, and Gloss boss Ilona Rodgers. Gravel-voiced Tony Barry (the man who uttered the immortal line "goodbye pork pie") stars as Murray, a retired detective going undercover in an upmarket rest home. Frank hopes to catch his longtime nemesis (Bach). Instead he finds himself in the company of the randy, and the unexpectedly dead. The "sweet, rather knowing little movie" (Linda Burgess in The Dominion Post) marked the feature debut of advertising veteran Simon Pattison.

By the mid 1980s Auckland had shifted from city of sails, to city of cranes. In the lead-up to the 1987 sharemarket crash, it was in the grip of "an unprecedented building boom". This 1986 Kaleidoscope report looks at the demolition and development from an architectural angle, as malls and mirror glass transform the city. Interviewees include developer Seph Glew of the (ill-fated) Chase Corporation, and his architects. Architecture critic Mark Wigley rates the BNZ Tower an "insult", but says Auckland's "crude" new buildings have at least provoked debate about what the city needs. 

Yuppies, shoulder-pads, sports cars and méthode champenoise abound in this cult 'glamour soap'. Gloss was NZ's answer to US soap Dynasty, with the Carrington oil scions replaced by the wealthy Redferns and their Auckland magazine empire. The series epitomised 80s excess, and became something of a guilty viewing pleasure. In this Rosemary McLeod-penned pilot, a 'Remuera Revisited' plot unfolds as Brad Redfern's plans to have a quiet wedding get waylaid by ex-wife Maxine. Schoolgirl Chelsea wags, listens to her Sony Walkman and gets an unorthodox haircut. 

The pressure is on as contestants from Kirkwood, St Bernard’s and Remuera intermediate schools compete in the 1980 final of this children’s quiz show. Future MP, minister and Speaker of the House, Lockwood Smith asks the questions, assisted by Relda Familton (a National Radio overnight host until her death in 1995). The finalists, competing for a state of the art colour TV, are quizzed on subjects including geometry, the years 6 BC to 30 AD, Shakespeare quotations, deserts, anatomy, historic England and, appropriately for the quizmaster, cabinet ministers.

This edition of New Zealand Stories follows a group of Australasian and German medical teams who make an annual charity trip to the Philippines. Over six intensive days they examine and operate on roughly 100 children who can't afford medical care — children for whom a single operation can be life-changing. As Auckland plastic surgeon Tristan de Chalain explains, the treatment typically involves fusing together parts of the lips and/or roof of the mouth which failed to join before birth. In this backgrounder, producer Amanda Evans writes about a mission born from kindness.