Shortland Street

I really see no appeal to this show, it's a struggle for me to watch when I'm forced to. I remember watching it a lot when I was a kid, but that's because back then there were three channels, we couldn't get TV3 and TV1 was pretty bad reception.

The show is repetitive and, personally, boring. When forced to watch it, I know what's going to happen because I can almost always say "This happened ten years ago," and it will have, except with different characters... well, sometimes it's the same characters.

Also, sadly, there are often untalented actors. But that can almost be excusable, as there is admittedly little public outlet for actors in New Zealand to hone their skills.

In all, I feel that the show is rather cheap. So I guess if you want to watch something with limited quality, and you didn't watch the show already a few years ago, you can give it a shot, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Shortland Street is New Zealand's most successful television "drama". Market saturation (it runs at every weekday) and determination by TVNZ has seen the show a steady rater. But despite all the hype (critics and academics who once drubbed it now fall over each other in praise), it's hard to see what's so great about it. Sure, compared to Neighbours, Brookside, Days of Our Lives, it comes off well, but Shortland Street is hardly great drama. In fact, technically, it ain't drama at all but melodrama. The plotlines are thin and pointless, largely consisting of the standard soap love triangles of who is sleeping with whom this week, and the show's much vaunted "humour" is about as amusing as jamming your fingers in a door. I think that Shortland Street's success has, in the long run, crippled NZ TV drama. It seems that, having one success, broadcasters and production companies are now unwilling to branch out and try new things. There is no stratification of primetime drama, there's just Shortland Street and nothing else.

At the end of the day, Shortland Street is a finely put together little soap. But that's all it is, and until we learn to grow up and create proper TV dramas, this silly show will be all we're ever capable of.

I have kind of a love/hate relationship with this show - sometimes it is gripping, funny and touches on various social issues pretty well, and other times the story and the characters are so stoopid I want to scream! I've been watching it off and on since the beginning of 1992, there's been times when I can't miss a single episode, other times when I couldn't care less. Shortland St does pretty good villains, though - the characters of Mckenzie Choat, Oscar Henry, Greg Feeney and Aleesha Cook (among others) are all unforgettable!

There are several things that could make me proud to be a New Zealander - this is not one of them. On the contrary, if anyone in Aotearoa could be at all pleased or proud by this show, then we ought to be ashamed!

I seriously cannot think of a single good thing about this 'show'.

For actors, it's like a rite of passage: 'if you can bear the worst of the worst (Shortland Street, that is) you may actually stand a chance in the acting world'. Actors will know once they've hit rock bottom, cause they've been there before...and it looks like Shortland Street. I'm pretty sure about a 3rd of the New Zealand population has appeared on this show at one stage or another.

For those of us in the health-care profession, I mean, where to begin?! It'd be easier to compile a list of things they actually got right, cause that'd be a much shorter list.

For those of us with appreciation of the Arts, well, I won't carry on writing: we wouldn't be watching this anyway.

For those of us with a sense of decency...oh wait, same problem!

For those of us with the slightest of intellect...ditto.

Here are the headlines:

Acting: 1/10 Plot: 1/10 Medical Accuracy: -7/10 Social Accuracy: 1/10 Entertainment: 1/10 Cringe-Worthiness: 100/10 Embarrassed: Yes

Ive watched the odd bit of Shortland Street over the years and what astonishes me is how incredibly bad the acting is in this show and yet somehow this doesnt seem to bother the people who watch this show religously. I wondered whether perhaps part of being taken on as an actor in Shortland Street is NOT having the ability to act? I say this in all seriousness. Is part of the likeability of Shortland Street that the acting is so bad? Are actors maybe encouraged to "act badly"? Ive seen actors who have been with the show since the beginning and seen their acting in more recent years and I can honestly say that their acting ability has not changed in all the years and if anything appears to be worse, so I do wonder "is that Shortland Streets charm, that it is so bad?