Creamerie is NZ’s Best New TV Show, Binge It Right Now

Isaac Taylor

Recently I’ve been becoming a massive Roseanne Liang fan, “joining the Liang gang” I’ve been calling it since watching Shadow in the Clouds starring Chloë Grace Moretz. Now a new series, Creamerie, directed and co-written by Liang during our year of lockdowns and interruptions has hit TVNZ on Demand and I can’t get enough of it.

The show is set eight years after a deadly pandemic wipes out everybody with a Y chromosome and women live in a peaceful dystopia in rural New Zealand. They have mandatory menstruation leave, “sync fests” and the occasional lobotomy for wrong-think. The government rations out semen from pre-existing stockpiles to maintain the population (baby boys don’t make it) and the local cult holds the clutches of power in the community. It follows the misadventures of three women who work a dairy farm and are just trying to get by in this new world when a man shows up on their property and turns their world upside down. Queue Terminator-style chase sequences from man bounty hunters and shadowy secrets slowly being revealed.

It’s lo-fi, darkly comedic, and is super pacey. Once you get started it’ll be a rollcoaster of a ride. My wife and I binged it in a few days, but could have easily have smashed the whole first season in a single sitting. It’s quintessentially Kiwi in its humour and I love it. The world they’ve cobbled together is one I want to see more of. Nailing all six half hour episodes together would make a perfectly paced and structured feature film.

Plenty of Kiwi talent and comedians make their way in, and it feels good seeing a show reflecting our home and culture, even in such a messed up environment. I guess this wouldn’t be a review if I don’t critique the show in some way.

The writing for the show began in 2018, back when the thought of a pandemic ruining our world was but a fun little idea writers got to play with. Having to do filming punctuated by lockdowns would have been a surreal experience. Anyway this has been my quick pitch for why you should be joining the Liang gang. Give Netflix trash a rest for a bit and go catch Creamerie over on TVNZ on Demand now.