Throng

The promos promised much, the hype was that it was awesome but this viewer has been left disappointed.

Leigh Hart is a master at the piss take.  He's actually quite good at it and has plenty of fans who like his work but the problem with Leigh Hart's Mysterious Planet is that there isn't actually a piss take.

So many scenes were obviously reshot and then edited in to give an appearance of something entirely different from reality.  Had things happened the way the editors had tried to portray them to have happened then perhaps they would have induced a chuckle here or there but the obviousness was painful.  At least when Borat came back from the dinner party with his bag of faeces, the response was real.

9:30pm Friday, February 12 on TV One

Explorer, archaeologist and crypto zoologist Leigh Hart leaves New Zealand on a journey to solve the world's greatest mysteries in this new local series, Leigh Hart's Mysterious Planet (tonight on TV ONE at 9.30pm). Armed only with his questionable expertise, a healthy dose of scepticism and a credit card, 'That Guy', heads on a quest to some of the most intriguing, remote, and physically challenging locations in the world.

For Hart, the unsolved mysteries of the world, and the plethora of documentaries surrounding them, have always held a real fascination. Part of the series was inspired by this interest but its creation can also be attributed to one of his family members.

It was TVNZ's turn to show off which series they'll be screening in 2010 at their new season launch today in Auckland.  As you'd expect, there's a fairly solid line-up.

TV One has a new goal:  to be a little edgier.  One might assume: a little less safe.  It will be interesting to see how this transcribes into ratings.

TV One should dominate Mondays with The Pacific, an HBO series from the makers of Band of Brothers.  This will be followed by the multi-Emmy award-winning series Generation Kill. However, as it aired in the US in 2008, it can be bought on DVD here for about $40.