The trouble with all these celebrity travel shows in New Zealand
Why are we watching so many overseas travel documentaries about a place we already live in?
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Conan O'Brien is standing in front of a large statue of a donut in the small Canterbury town of Springfield. Apart from the giant pink cake behind him, it's an otherwise unremarkable moment, until O'Brien is approached by a man holding a plate of crepes and a pair of blue snorkelling flippers. O'Brien doesn't flinch. 'I'm a big fan,' the stranger says, explaining that he grabbed the two items closest to him as soon as he unexpectedly laid eyes on the American comedian. 'Thank you for sharing your C+ pancakes with me,' O'Brien replies, his mouth still full as he theatrically wipes his greasy hands on the stranger's jacket.
It's not your typical New Zealand tourist experience, but it's one of the more delightful moments from Conan O'Brien Must Go, the travel series that sees O'Brien roam the world to meet his fans. In the latest episode, O'Brien is lured to our shores by Riley, a fan from Hokitika who reveals on O'Brien's podcast that he lives in a container house and poops into a bucket. 'It's a journey that would bring me to the brink of madness,' O'Brien tells us, as we watch him dramatically hack his way through New Zealand's thick native bush.
Conan O'Brien Must Go mixes comedy with sightseeing, as O'Brien meets Taika Waititi ('as required by the government'), learns how to be 'skux' from comedian Abby Howells, and even pops up on Shortland Street. As is also required by the New Zealand government, there's a bit about how much we love sheep, and O'Brien even enjoys a coffee with his namesake, Rotorua councillor Conan O'Brien. It's an especially funny and charming episode, with the self-deprecating comedian happy to be laughed at while he points out the quirks of a tiny country plonked at the end of the world.
But O'Brien is far from the the first celebrity to enjoy a light-hearted romp around Aotearoa recently. A steady stream of famous folk have turned up here to make a TV show, like reality TV judges Colin Fasnidge and Manu Fiedel, currently hauling a caravan around the country in Colin and Manu: Off the Grid (TVNZ+). Before them, actor Miriam Margolyes farted her way across the motu in Miriam Margolyes in New Zealand (Neon), while Location Location Location's Phil Spencer returned this year to film a second season of the top-rating Phil Spencer: New Zealand's Best Homes (TVNZ+).
But wait, there's more. Fellow British TV presenter George Clarke also toured the country to film the upcoming Homes In the Wild (Neon), and Hoff Roading, the much-delayed New Zealand travel-comedy series featuring David Hasselhoff and Rhys Darby, will screen later this year.
Essentially, we bloody love it when famous people come here and point at our stuff. 'He loves New Zealand as much as we love him,' the NZ Herald gushed during The Hoff's visit, while copious media coverage was given to Hollywood actor Jason Momoa's astonishing nationwide tour. We thrive on any attention from foreign celebs, we go wild when celebrities have small-town beef, we turn unruly tourist hijinks into operas. Let's face it: New Zealanders never feel more validated than when a celebrity likes our pies.
These photogenic travel shows must also be a dream come true for Tourism New Zealand, given they'll inspire rich tourists around the world to come and channel their inner Miriam Margolyes, breaking wind from Cape Reinga to Rakiura. But amid those crepe plates and giant donuts, we're being served up a lot of travel shows about a place we already live in – and at a time when record numbers of New Zealanders are leaving the country. Are we being gaslit about how good things are here, and why are we leaving these shows of discovery and exploration to people who don't even know us?
Where are more of the insightful homegrown shows that tell the unique, dynamic stories of our everyday lives, like Whakaata Māori's beautiful Homesteads or Neon's heartwarming Shepherdess? Remember those classic docu-series like Off The Rails and Heartland, which took us into communities around the country and revealed us to be a surprising and complex nation? Guy Williams' satirical New Zealand Today celebrates the eccentricities of small town New Zealand, but there's still so much more room for local shows that take us far beyond what the tourism industry wants people to see.
Shows like Conan O'Brien Must Go give viewers a taste of New Zealand, but they barely scratch the surface of who we really are. There's only so many times you can see a sweeping shot of Queenstown's mountains or hear a French chef say how beautiful our country is, before you start to wonder if that's all there is. As the nature of television changes and it becomes more and more challenging to make our own dramas, comedies and documentaries, these endless celebrity travel series beg an important question: are we now destined to only see ourselves on screen through someone else's lens?
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