New TV series: Should Gore be nervous?
Teenagers in the comedy series nOOb attend a fictional school called Gore College.
Sign up to get our Tribune editions sent direct to your email inbox.
A new six-part comedy series called nOOb will premiere on Thursday night on Three and its streaming platform ThreeNow - and there’s a notable Southland connection attached to it.
nOOb is centred around a group of teenagers who are navigating the highs and lows of adolescence.
It’s set in 2005 and follows the lives of youngsters growing up with the newly created internet.
Now for that Southland connection.
The series is set in Gore - although has not been filmed in the eastern Southland town.
The teenagers that feature in the comedy series attend the fictional school called Gore College.
One of the main characters is Gore College first XV captain Nikau - played by Max Crean.
Crean has described his character as “the equivalent of a New Zealand jock who is living this beautiful life in Gore”.
However, when he is outed as gay, Nikau’s popularity plummets and he goes from the cool kid to “social outcast”.
He’s forced to go on a journey of self-discovery traversing the complicated world of high school in search of the confidence to be his true self.
It’s understood there might be a few nerves floating Gore as to how the town might be portrayed in the series - even if it is a fictional series - and also how some in Gore may react to it.
Gore Mayor Ben Bell said he did not know a lot about the comedy series until local newspaper The Ensign quizzed him on it.
He had not had any contact with those who have produced the six-part series.
“They didn’t [reach out], but that may be because it wasn’t filmed here, it was filmed somewhere else. And I think it’s set in 2005, and I wasn’t the mayor back then either,” Bell said.
So, is Bell nervous as to how Gore may be portrayed in the fictional series and also how some in Gore might react to it?
“Slightly. The ‘gay Gore’ stuff is still pretty fresh in people’s minds. I would be naive to think it isn’t.
“But [nOObs] is aimed at teenagers - by the looks of it - it is not really aimed at the people who would react to it.”
As alluded to by Bell, Gore has a bit of history of reacting somewhat angrily at of television coverage that has featured the town.
In 1999 Jeremy Wells, in a satirical piece of television, labelled Gore the gay capital of New Zealand. It was part of the Havoc and Newsboy TV programme.
When Wells returned to Gore for election coverage with TVNZ in 2008, he says was accosted by 15 men at a petrol station.
Mikey Havoc also said an All Black tried to fight him in a pub because he had made fun of Gore in that television programme.
The late Mary Ogg - who was then the Gore Mayor in 1999 - went as far as saying: “God help them if I ever see them again. If they come back, they will be brandished with barbed wire and run out of town by our ageing population.”
The whole matter sparked a strange series of news articles - and push back from some Gore locals - explaining that Gore was in fact the least gay place in New Zealand.
Mayor Bell wasn’t completed sold with the suggestion that any publicity is good publicity, although he rolled with that theory anyway in the lead up to the release of the six-part fictional comedy series set in Gore.
“Hey, it might encourage a young person who sees it and says, ‘you know what, Gore is the place I want to live’, and they pack their bags and move down. Who knows,” Bell said.
nOOb has been created by Victoria Boult and Rachel Fawcett and originally debuted on TikTok in August 2022 after receiving backing from the Every Voice programme, which is designed to support emerging voices with funding from NZ On Air, Screen Australia and TikTok itself.
The TikTok series was produced on a $50,000 budget.
The show quickly racked up 1.5 million views, leading to Three and its streamer ThreeNow to commission a full six-part, half-hour series that will debut on Thursday in New Zealand.
n00b will screen on Three and ThreeNow from Thursday.
Sounds gay