Vibe's blog

VIBE – Friday 12 March, 8.30pm

Academy Award® nominated director George Miller delivers a sweeping, powerful, and tear-jerking drama based on the true story of a family who discovers their five-year old son is dying of an incurable, mysterious brain disease. In an effort to save their son, Augusto and Michaela Odone set out to find a cure themselves, and through their devotion and love they turned the medical world upside-down Starring Academy Award® winner Susan Sarandon (The Banger Sisters), and Academy Award® nominees Nick Nolte (Hotel Rwanda) and Laura Linney (Love Actually).

VIBE – Friday 12 March, 7.30pm

The most hard-working bunch of broads in the business are back with a vengeance, dropping that post-baby bulge quicker than ever before.

Not even childbirth can stand in the way of the latest celebrity super-mums on a mission to snap back into shape. The relentless pressure to look perfect means finding new and more extreme ways to shift post-pregnancy fat before the bulge starts making bigger headlines than the celebs themselves. As this worrying and dangerous trend of post pregnancy weight loss shows no sign of stopping we’ll uncover the extreme lengths to which our celeb mums will go to in order to shed the pounds. Not only will we look at how these women should look after giving birth, we’ll also calculate “£ for lb” how much money these skinny mums have made by going back to work early.

VIBE – Thursday 11 March, 7.30pm

Charting some of the most extreme cases of post-pregnancy weight loss the world has ever seen, this fascinating documentary looks at how they are doing it, why are they doing it, and uncovers the bizarre exercise regimes and secret diets behind some of the best loved stars.

Heidi Klum, Victoria Beckham and Madonna all shrank back to their original sizes (and smaller!) within weeks of giving birth. But in the weight-obsessed showbiz world, are these high profile mums putting themselves in danger? Some of these celebrity mummies let nothing stand in the way of work, not even childbirth. Barely eating anything, these workaholic celebrity mummies are back to work within hours of giving birth.

In a new twist, a real-life mum puts some of these strange regimes into practice to see whether they really work and what effects such dramatic weight loss has on the body. In between these observations, top nutritionists, as well as childbirth experts and other celebrities, seek to explain the frightening implications of drastic weight loss and give their views on this increasingly familiar phenomenon sweeping celebrity motherhood.

VIBE – Wednesday 10 March, 7.30pm

Skinniness is an epidemic amongst Hollywood’s hottest female stars, and it shows no signs of dying down.

It’s the usual suspects: Mary Kate, Nicole Ritchie, Victoria Beckham, they are all super skinny and despite the pleas to ‘eat or die’ they are staying that way! But why do they do it and what is the devastating impact on their health?

Extreme: Dead Skinny Celebrities looks at the exercising and eating regimes that stars use to get down to the coveted ‘size zero’; the male ‘manorexics’ who are also falling for the skinny ideal and the yo-yo dieters whose very public battle with the bulge could be damaging their metabolism forever. And what happens when your obsession with looking good on the outside means you start to do real damage on the inside? Cutting edge graphics take a peek inside the body and minds of the skinniest celebrities to find out exactly what’s going on.

VIBE – Friday 5 March, 8.30pm

A down-on-her luck art restorer, sharing a New York City apartment with four supermodel roommates, can’t seem to find a guy who won’t cheat on her. Cue her honest neighbour and maybe even her ideal man. It’s all a fairy tale… until she thinks she witnesses her new love interest committing a murder!

Starring Monica Potter (Patch Adams) and Freddie Prinze Jr. (She’s All That).

VIBE – Friday 26 February, 8.30pm

In post-WWI Britain, English butler Stevens, who has devoted 30 years to Lord Darlington, realises as he looks back on his life that his unquestioning faith in his master has cost him dearly. Engrossed in orchestrating his employer’s grand banquets, receptions and conferences, he was forced to neglect his dying father and denied his feelings for the attractive young housekeeper, Miss Kenton. Starring Academy Award® winners Anthony Hopkins (Meet Joe Black) and Emma Thompson (Love Actually).

VIBE – Weeknights from Friday 26 February, 6.10pm & 10.30pm

Since debuting in 1997, Buffy The Vampire Slayer has become one of television’s most successful breakout hits. This action-packed drama, cleverly laced with comedy and horror, has been named “one of the ten best shows” on television by Time Magazine, TV Guide, USA Today and Entertainment Weekly. Emmy Award-winner Sarah Michelle Gellar stars as Buffy, the quick-witted heroine whose duty as the sole vampire slayer of her generation is to protect the world from the undead, who yearns to be normal. Trying to balance her new adult responsibilities with saving the world, Buffy remains cheerful and fierce throughout, even as her hometown of Sunnydale, California sits atop a Hellmouth, a mystical portal where all the demons of the netherworld converge.
In season six, Buffy The Vampire Slayer offered an inspired and seismic shift in the direction of the show. Buffy, now a single working woman, struggled to raise her sister by day and battle demons by night. Her friends’ lives took many tumultuous turns. Romances flourished and waned. The Scooby gang grew up. As the final season begins, the series will take a surprising and typically innovative turn with the reopening of the high school (famously obliterated at the end of the third season). “That represents a lot of what we’re talking about in terms of getting back to the very first mission statement of the show, which was the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it,” explains Joss Whedon, the show’s creator and executive producer. This startling development will foretell new challenges and threats, which promise that the battle against evil is far from over. And so the fight continues… only on Vibe.

VIBE – Sundays from 21 February, 4.25pm

Can’t get a date? Meet Matt Titus, New York’s premiere professional relationship expert and dating coach, whose specialty is helping both single women and gay men find their Mr. Right.

Matt and his business partners – including his wife Tamsen Fadal and associate Eddie Varley – use a realistic approach in their attempt to expertly pair their single clients who are unable to find a mate on their own. Matt hits the streets and cafés of New York City – with clients in tow – to show them what it takes to snag the man of their dreams. With clientele that runs the gamut from dating novice to serial dater, Matt and his team have a stable of men and women in their files ready to find a man. Matt, Tamsen and Eddie then play Cupid, pairing the perfect match and selecting a suitable location for the pair to meet. That’s when Matt kicks it into high-gear. He skillfully preps his clients for the big date, giving them advice on wardrobe, hair, make-up, body language and conversation topics. Follow the lives of Matt’s clients as he puts them through the paces of dating boot camp and relationship rehab, only on Vibe.

VIBE – Friday 19 February, 8.30pm

Jack Willis, a tough and rugged outdoorsman in Australia’s outback, has a secret: he’s also a top-selling romance novelist under the penname of his unwitting friend, Ruby Vale! Things are fine until a big-city publisher comes to Jack’s one-kangaroo town to sign the author, and Jack must convince the real Ruby to play along and protect his embarrassing secret. Get ready for non-stop laughs as Jack and Ruby’s charade unfolds and the two begin to experience feelings they never knew they had.

Starring Hugh Jackman (Kate & Leopold) and Claudia Karvan (Love My Way).

VIBE – Tuesdays from 16 February, 9.30pm

Vibe is proud to present a spirited new drama series about one woman’s crusade for justice, one case at a time. Based on the best-selling novels by Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency tells the uplifting fictional story of a Botswana woman who fulfils a long-time dream – and bucks daunting odds – by opening her country’s first and only female-owned detective agency.

As a young girl growing up in the African nation of Botswana, Precious Ramotswe (Grammy® Award winner Jill Scott), was encouraged by her father to follow her dreams, no matter what. Now in her mid-30s, the cheerful, wise and eminently sensible Precious is doing just that, embarking on an improbable career that utilises her unique gifts of inquisition and intuition to benefit those who need help the most. Aided by her efficient yet high-strung secretary Grace Makutsi (Anika Noni Rose, Dreamgirls), Precious investigates a variety of cases, helping townspeople solve “mysteries” in their lives, from missing children to philandering husbands to con-artist scams. She also begins a special friendship with a widowed suitor, the owner of a local garage.

The production pedigree for this HBO/BBC co-production is exceptional. The late Academy Award® winning director Anthony Minghella (Cold Mountain, Best Director Oscar® for The English Patient) was a known fan of the books, and was the director, co-writer and executive producer of the feature length pilot episode. “Filming The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in Botswana was an amazing adventure. The people were marvellous and the landscape, especially in the northern areas of the country, is extraordinary. Particularly fascinating to me was working and filming in an African country where old and new are currently coexisting, where traditional values have not yet been eroded by the demands and efficiencies and neuroses of the modern. It was a privilege to be working on a film which celebrates what we can learn from Africa, and not what we think we can teach it” said Minghella.

DID YOU KNOW?

This is the first major film or television production to be undertaken in Botswana.
Zimbabwean-born Scotsman Alexander McCall Smith, author of the international bestselling novels on which the series is based, is also a respected Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh.
Jill Scott is an American R&B singer/songwriter and has won three Grammy awards since 2005, while co-star Anika Noni Rose won a Tony award for a lead role on Broadway.
The decision to cast Jill Scott as Mma Precious Ramotswe was made just two weeks before production began. Precious Ramotswe exemplifies the courageous efforts by real-life Africans to improve the quality of their lives while preserving their culture. Though Precious brings a playful, even innocent exuberance to her job, the “mysteries” she investigates are no joke, and include child kidnapping, poverty, organised crime, health crises, spousal abandonment and infidelity – ongoing problems that confront many Africans today.
Both Anthony Minghella and fellow executive producer, Sydney Pollack (Oscar® winning director of Out of Africa and Tootsie) passed away before the full series entered production, so the remainder of the series was helmed by NZ born co-writer Richard Curtis (Love Actually, Notting Hill, Oscar® nominee for Four Weddings and a Funeral).