Open House - Shades of Blue

My mother...she's small aye, she's pretty, and she's tough. If she knew I was down here now she'd kill me, man.

– Hemi (Turei Reedy) describes his mother to Lorna (Sylvia Rands)

The first time I met a group of those kids you know where they were living? You know that burnt out shell down on Kino St? In there. It was cold, it stank, it's wet but that's where they were living.

– Tony (Frank Whitten) tells cop Mary Moody (Lorae Parry) about his encounter with local teenage glue sniffers

Stop staring, Hemi Mitchell.

– The mysterious Lorna (Sylvia Rands) makes her first appearance

...I'm sorry. I don't know why I do that. Sometimes I think I must be crazy. I like the effect I can have on people at times — it's sort of a game I play...

– Lorna (Sylvia Rands) opens up slightly to Hemi (Turei Reedy)

Those shades man...they're massive.

– Hemi (Turei Reedy) admires Lorna's distinctive blue sunglasses

The trouble is I want him to be studious, but he's not. None of the other kids were either, but they didn't worry me; just Hemi. I want him to be different. It's not logical, it's not fair, but it's true. Maybe I'm to blame for his attitude, I don't know.

– Ngahuia (Tūngia Baker) confides fears for her youngest son Hemi (Turei Reedy)

The bicultural innovations of Open House were strangely ignored years later, particularly amid the hype surrounding the higher profiled Shortland Street which debuted in 1992. In 1996 for example, Australian scholar Albert Moran published a paper implying that Shortland Street had broken new ground with its depictions of New Zealand Māori and Pacific Island cultures. However it was Open House, not Shortland Street that was first to put a Māori family at the centre of a long form drama concept.

– TV historian Trisha Dunleavy, in her 1999 book Ourselves in Primetime, page 178

Come on — remember me at 15, and what a pain I was? . . . I grew out of it, didn't I? And so will he. Just give him some time.

– Shirley (Christina Asher) begs her mother Ngahuia (Tūngia Baker) to go easy on her brother Hemi (Turei Reedy)