Flatmates - Full Series

No way! That is real life!

– Vanessa’s response to Geoffrey’s request to delete the party footage, in episode one

Six of us have volunteered to be flatmates for three months. And I'm the one with the camera.

– Narrator Craig Wright, in episode one

...I ain't going to put up with nothing from no one. I had a fun time swearing at all these people though, it was good. And there's not a damn thing they could have done about it — I mean who would argue with Vanessa, I ask you.

– Geoffrey, after the police arrive, in episode one

This flat would be fine and no one would have a problem with a single other person in it, if...Vanessa left.

– Christian on turmoil within the flat, in episode three

My hero of the moment. He’s replaced Norm Berryman in hero stakes. Norm Berryman replaced Christian Cullen, and Eric Cantona has replaced Berryman.

– Vanessa on French footballer Eric Cantona, in episode three

I'm just worried that if something good or bad happens it'll affect the whole project and I don't want that to happen. But at the same time, I'm only human. I don't know. Why repress feelings, you know what I mean?

– Craig contemplates expressing his feelings for Vanessa, in episode two

You know you would be an absolutely lovely person, if you would go over tonight’s film, and erase every little bit.

– Geoffrey to Craig the cameraman, after the party fracas, in episode one

People are scum. Apparently someone ripped the basin off the toilet and it flooded and people were apparently were just standing there and urinating from the end of the room … people are just absolutely disgusting…

– Christian surveys the aftermath of the party, in episode two

I’m talking to a camera and I'm not talking to you. And I want to talk to you!

– Vanessa, to cameraman/boyfriend Craig, in episode five

The fact is someone is using my stuff without telling me. What annoys me is that the note’s been up for a week and no one's bothered to come up to me and say ‘hey, is it alright if I borrow it?’ Because they haven’t got the balls to come up to me and see if I'd say yes.

– Vanessa on the troubles of living in a shared space, in episode five

At the same time I’ve sort of come to admire her too. Because she’s not your average person and I’ve got a lot of time for that. In some ways, I’ve become attracted to her.

– Craig praises Vanessa, in episode two

...that sort of thing's for the bedroom mate, not for a lecture theatre of 120 people on a winter’s day.

– Vanessa describes a fellow university student who wears no bra underneath her shirt, in episode two

You couldn't have scripted that. It was just wonderful — a revelation of how young New Zealanders actually deal with stuff, and how they get on together.

– Flatmates producer Vincent Burke, in his ScreenTalk interview for NZ On Screen

I know there’s a lot of feminists that dislike the idea of a beauty pageant, but a lot of them haven’t actually been in one. And for me it's not degrading ... it's something that I enjoy, and if a person went in them and felt degraded, then they shouldn't be in it.

– Natasha on beauty pageants, in episode three

Ceilla and Natasha are both from home: they don't know what flatting is about.

– Vanessa the veteran flattie on her fellow flatmates, in episode four

I don’t know how one woman can make so many dishes while cooking one meal.

– Geoffrey on cooking dinner in the flat, in episode five

I've been trying to find out from everyone: where is James Small going to be drinking tonight?

– Vanessa dreams of Springbok player James Small after the rugby game, in episode four

Vanessa was the breakout star of Flatmates — she went on to land a job co-hosting a youth magazine show on TV4 called The Drum. She was self-assured and opinionated and funny — "I don’t like anyone with manufactured dreads", she declared while appraising Geoffrey’s CD collection.

– Calum Henderson in a Spinoff article on Flatmates, 26 May 2016

Twenty years ago reality shows were raw, confronting and ugly. They were shocking and hilarious, but also excruciatingly boring. In 1997, buoyed by the arrival of youth-oriented channel TV4, New Zealand entered the reality television game with a show that was all of these things. Flatmates, a low-budget 'docu-soap' heavily inspired by MTV’s The Real World, was some of the realest reality television ever seen on Kiwi screens.

– Calum Henderson looks back on the show, The Spinoff, 26 May 2016