intrepid journeys episodes

• Peter Elliot in Kenya, Faces of Kenya
• Mar 3, 2003
• Peta Mathias in Bolivia, Highlights of Bolivia
• Mar 10, 2003
• Robyn Malcolm in Vietnam, Minority Colours of the North
• Mar 17, 2003
• Pio Terei in India, Slowly Down the Ganges
• Mar 24, 2003
• Michael Laws in Ecuador, Ecuador Unplugged
• Mar 31, 2003
• Craig Parker in Nepal, Nepal Adventure
• Apr 7, 2003
• Marcus Lush in Egypt, Discover Egypt
• Apr 14, 2003
• Kerre Woodham in Cambodia, Heart of Cambodia
• Oct 4, 2004
• Danielle Cormack in Syria and Jordan
• Oct 11, 2004
• Tim Shadbolt in Borneo, the Land Beneath the Wind
• Oct 25, 2004
• Ewen Gilmour in Peru, Majestic Peru
• Nov 1, 2004
• Hugh Sundae in Mongolia
• Nov 22, 2004
• Paul Henry in Tibet, Tibet Unplugged
• Nov 29, 2004
• Karyn Hay in East Timor
• Dec 6, 2004
• Katie Wolf in China, The Best of China
• Dec 13, 2004
• John Gadsby in Myanmar
• Dec 20, 2004
• Donald Sutherland in Central America, Mayan Highlights
• Dec 27, 2004
• Dave Dobbyn in Morocco
• Sep 26, 2005
• Marcus Lush on the Trans Siberian Railway, Russia
• Oct 3, 2005
• Kim Hill in Cuba
• Oct 10, 2005
• Roger Hall in Uganda
• Oct 17, 2005
• Trelise Cooper in Turkey
• Oct 24, 2005
• Rawiri Paratene in Nicaragua
• Oct 31, 2005
• Lisa Chappell in Malaysia
• Nov 7, 2005
• Miriama Smith in China, Yunnan Explorer
• Nov 14, 2005
• Andrew Fagan in Indonesia, East Indies Explorer
• Nov 21, 2005
• Bernadine Oliver-Kirby, Destination Dalmation Coast
• Nov 28, 2005
• John McBeth in Venezuela
• Dec 5, 2005
• Chris Knox in Southern India
• Dec 12, 2005
• Jeff Wilson in Romania, Eastern Europe Explorer
• Dec 19, 2005
• Jeremy Wells - Libya Revealed
• Feb 5, 2007
• John Tamihere - Silk Rd to Karakoram
• Feb 12, 2007
• Suzanne Paul - Hanoi to Hong Kong
• Feb 19, 2007
• Mary Lambie - Iran Adventure
• Feb 26, 2007
• John Banks - Madagascar Explorer
• Mar 5, 2007
• Anton Oliver - Nepal, Annapurna Sanctuary
• Mar 12, 2007
• Te Radar - Mali, Journey to Timbuktu
• Mar 19, 2007
• Pam Corkery - Colombia
• Apr 22, 2008
• Shane Cortese - Sri Lanka
• Apr 29, 2008
• Stephanie Tauevihi - Ladakh
• May 6, 2008
• Paul Holmes - Yemen
• May 13, 2008
• Norm Hewitt - Sarawak, the headhunters trail
• May 20, 2008
• Jenny Shipley - Namibia
• May 27, 2008
• Glen Osborne - Uzbekistan & Kyrgyzstan
• Jun 3, 2008
• Kevin Milne - Ukraine
• Jul 31, 2009
• Temepara George - Sikkim & Darjeeling
• Aug 7, 2009
• Rhys Darby - Rwanda
• Aug 14, 2009
• Ruben Wiki - Laos
• Aug 21, 2009
• Judy Bailey - Rio to Buenos Aires
• Sep 11, 2009
• Anika Moa - Mexico & Guatemala
• Sep 18, 2009
• Brendan Cole - Vanuatu
• Sep 25, 2009
• Tamati Coffey - Arabian Penninsula
• Jan 20, 2011
• Renato Bartolomei - Mongolia
• Jan 27, 2011
• Lynda Topp - Tajikistan
• Feb 3, 2011
• Simon Gault - Istanbul & Iran
• Feb 10, 2011
• Keisha Castle-Hughes - Africa
• Feb 18, 2011
• Frank Bunce - Egypt
• Mar 2, 2011
• Rachel Hunter - Sumatra
• May 22, 2012
• Steve Price - Nepal
• May 29, 2012
• Annie Crummer - Peru / Boliva
• Jun 5, 2012
• Oscar Kightley - Burma / Myanmar
• Jun 19, 2012
• Pamela Stephenson Connolly - Papua New Guinea
• Jun 26, 2012
• Buck Shelford / Cuba
• Jul 3, 2012

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Take off with Kiwi celebrities as they travel the back roads of some of the world's most beautiful countries.

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Intrepid Journeys

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Last Air Date: July 3rd, 2012

Genres: Documentary

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Intrepid Journeys

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• Kevin Milne - Ukraine E1 Kevin Milne - Ukraine Episode 1
• Temepara George - Sikkim & Darjeeling E2 Temepara George - Sikkim & Darjeeling Episode 2
• Rhys Darby - Rwanda E3 Rhys Darby - Rwanda Episode 3
• Ruben Wiki - Laos E4 Ruben Wiki - Laos Episode 4
• Judy Bailey - Rio to Buenos Aires E5 Judy Bailey - Rio to Buenos Aires Episode 5
• Anika Moa - Mexico & Guatemala E6 Anika Moa - Mexico & Guatemala Episode 6
• Brendan Cole - Vanuatu E7 Brendan Cole - Vanuatu Episode 7

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Intrepid Journeys

Peter Elliott (Self (Episode 1)) Peta Mathias (Self (Episode 2)) Robyn Malcolm (Self (Episode 3)) Pio Terei (Self (Episode 4)) Michael Laws (Self (Episode 5)) Craig Parker (Self (Episode 6)) Marcus Lush (Self (Episode 7))

New Zealand Celebrities take individual journeys to exotic, sometimes difficult and out of the way locations and share their experiences in an honest and often amusing way. Season 1 sees Kenya, Vietnam, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nepal, India and Egypt visited.

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Intrepid Journeys

Television, 2003–2012.

• Backgrounds (2)

This series has two backgrounds:

Unstructured, unresearched and unbelievable

So many places to travel

By Jane Andrews 29/04/2020

"No way!" "It won’t work." "That's not how it is done!" It is hard to say why we didn’t listen to our experienced colleagues, but there are now hours of real-life adventure from the far corners of the world that show how wrong those expert industry folk were.

When  Melanie Rakena  had the idea for  Intrepid Journeys , travel shows featured hosts in immaculate designer clothes, dusted with bronzer and highlighter. They delivered insights with a cocktail in hand from beside the pool. The experience involved multiple takes and artfully diffused light. The years spent editing programmes awash with insights like “the smiles are a mile wide” and “it doesn’t get any better than this” were all the motivation we needed to seek out gritty locations, where real people lived.   

Launching a brand based on unstructured production — with no safety nets, and a dose of culture shock thrown in — turned out to be a great lesson in how the human psyche works. Total freedom scares some people and it liberates others. Many will have no idea which camp they are in until they are knee-deep and, at that point on an  Intrepid Journey , the only option is to suck it up.  Both Mel and I loved it.  

These days reality TV should probably be called “controlled, scripted using semi-professional actors TV”. When we began making  Intrepid Journeys , we called it reality TV because we captured real things happening in the real world in real-time. We started everyday with no interviews booked, or even a run sheet of what we would aim to film. Where some saw a day that lacked a plan, we saw a day filled with potential.  

These days reality TV does multiple takes and the crew know what they will be filming; it will be pre-lit and everyone is wearing a microphone. On  Intrepid  we went into every new situation blind, clutching a sungun, running off a camera mic and knowing it was one take and one take only. I still can’t explain how that seemingly no-win set of circumstances delivers gold that pre-arranged and technically controlled filming doesn’t.

The audience, potential talent and other industry professionals largely struggled to believe our approach consisted of:

go to a country 

follow whatever happens

But that is the essence of the  Intrepid Journeys  series. The level of control and organisation most TV productions rely on can mean the magic gets wrung out of things. More often than not, the crazy moments that happen on the fly are so much better than anything a production team could plan. I know we couldn’t have arranged to hitch a ride on the back of a ute filled with sheep through Syria, or to be asked to help feed baby goats in a nomad’s tent in Mongolia. Those things and so many other wonderful real moments happened because we let them.

Capturing unscheduled, unscripted magic takes special people. Our crews had to be more than skilled technicians, capable of working with the bare minimum of gear. They had to be incredible human beings who could walk twice as far as everyone else carrying 15 kgs of equipment, which always included a subpar tripod, to get incredible shots. They had to be up for sunrise, still be focused for sunset, and remain calm in-between.

Our hosts were famous Kiwis who, for the most part, were used to having control over their image. Their confidence was built on being the master of an art, craft or code.  Intrepid Journeys  stripped away the prop their specialties would normally provide. Travel doesn’t care whether you are  an All Black , a former Prime Minister, or Jane from Waitara. Going intrepid levels the playing field. Our brave travellers had to face cameras without the comforts of home, the filters of minders, and the time to prepare and present their best self. And, believe it or not, that can be the most magical part of all of it, if you let it. Jenny Shipley summed up this gift in the simplest of terms — “here, I am just Jenny.”

Archiving may preserve our moment in TV time, and even smile fondly on the rustic charm and naive production values we love. But should we get consigned to the digital black hole of incompatible media, we know the Kiwis who flew with us embraced the challenge; many are forever changed because of it. It isn’t often you can be part of something that does that. And you certainly can’t do it from beside the pool, with a cocktail in hand.

-  Jane Andrews   and  Melanie Rakena   launched the long-running  Intrepid Journeys  in 2003. The duo made TV shows under the Jam TV banner for 18 years — including  Off the Rails, Radar's Patch  and  DNA Detectives.   

Back to top

By Paul Stanley Ward 26/05/2017

The inspiration for  Intrepid Journeys  came from producer/director  Melanie Rakena 's passion for adventure travel. Having experienced the exhilaration of backpacking to far-flung corners of the globe, Rakena convinced TVNZ that the idea of taking local celebrities off the beaten track and out of their comfort zone, was a good one.

The result was the genre-defining  Intrepid Journeys , which lasted for nine seasons. The format involves piggy-backing for two weeks alongside a celebrity traveller — from All Blacks to music legends and ex-Prime Ministers  — in a rough and ready destination. Making popular personalities the presenters for the show was a canny decision; it was a point of difference for an adventure travel format that might have easily been consigned as ‘niche' by television programmers.

The entertainment value of seeing your favourite celeb facing physical challenges — crouched over a toilet with Delhi Belly, or blistered from walking in the Himalayas rather than down the red carpet — is enticing.

But the achievement of  Intrepid Journeys  was to mix that voyeuristic pleasure with unforced and observational engagement with the local culture. Unlike most travel shows (which often feel little more than destination infomercials), here the presenters' experience of the country's history, culture and people feels authentic, and often intimate and moving.

As Rakena and  Jane Andrews ' company Jam TV said in the publicity: "Although they are celebrity travellers, they travel and live as the locals do — ride bumpy local buses with chickens and goats, stay in ethnic villages, and eat traditional food which stretches the palate. As a result they are able to reflect on what is special about their lives in a Western and privileged world."

The presenters are a conduit (generally sensitive and insightful) to real knowledge and understanding of places, lives and events foreign to Western culture; "other cultures and countries that may otherwise only be seen on the news when all hell is breaking loose." This is a special achievement in a ratings-dependent prime time slot.

As Jam TV put it: "It is not a Survivor-style manufactured challenge show. It is about meeting real challenges in the real world, travelling to lesser-known places and then getting around the way locals do... by foot, bus and camel." It could be described as  The Amazing Race  without the race, and the results make for, well, often amazing television.

Eschewing 'all expenses paid' style spa and beach breaks,  Intrepid Journeys ' destinations included Bolivia , Borneo , Cuba , Iran, Libya , Mali , Mongolia , Myanmar (aka Burma), Nicaragua , Tibet , Uganda and Yemen ; countries with interesting and troubled pasts and presents. In these countries the ‘world famous in New Zealand' celebrities were just another Western face.

Over nine seasons, the personalities featured included John Banks,  Danielle Cormack ,  Dave Dobbyn , the late  Ewen Gilmour , Karyn Hay ,  Kim Hill ,  Paul Henry , Paul Holmes , Chris Knox,  Michael Laws , Marcus Lush , Robyn Malcolm , Anton Oliver , Rawiri Paratene , Te Radar ,  Tim Shadbolt , Pio Terei ,  Jeremy Wells  and many more.

Intrepid Journeys  creator Melanie Rakena has also taken a number of television journeys within New Zealand, usually accompanied by presenter  Marcus Lush . Co-creator Jane Andrews' other screen travels include  Caravan of Life  and a series of sustainable living shows featuring  Te Radar .

-  Paul Stanley Ward  has studied at Oxford University, lived and worked in New York, and written short films that have screened at festivals in Venice and Cannes. He was Founding Editor of NZ On Screen.  

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In poignant 'Brats' documentary, actors reckon with the Brat Pack label they've worn for decades

Andrew mccarthy, a member of the tribe, hears from demi moore, rob lowe and other former co-stars stigmatized by a writer’s clever turn of phrase..

Demi Moore and Andrew McCarthy, who co-starred in “St. Elmo’s Fire” (1985), reminisce in McCarthy’s documentary “Brats.”

ABC News Studios

When Vulture magazine did a whole thing on “Nepo Babies” in December of 2022, it caused quite the splash and ripple effect, with dozens of other media outlets chiming in on the trend (which has been around since the dawn of entertainment and for that matter just about every other profession), and second-generation entertainers such as Maya Hawke, Zoe Kravitz, Lily-Rose Depp, and Gwyneth Paltrow weighing in.

Multiple that buzz by 100 and you’ll have an idea of the kind of frenzy that surrounded the June 10, 1985, cover story in New York Magazine by David Blum titled, “Hollywood’s Brat Pack,” with the subhead, “They’re Rob, Emilio, Sean, Tom, Judd and the rest — the young movie stars you can’t quite keep straight.” With one clever turn of phrase and a cynical albeit entertaining feature article, Blum pinned a label that stuck like Velcro® on a generation of actors who had starred in zeitgeist films such as “Class,” “Sixteen Candles,” “St. Elmo’s Fire,” “The Breakfast Club,” “Pretty in Pink,” and “The Outsiders,” creating the impression they were so busy partying and living the hipster life that they didn’t take the work seriously.

Now, some 40 years later, actor- filmmaker Andrew McCarthy examines the phenomenon and tries to figure out why he’s still impacted by the “Brat Pack” stigma in the emotionally authentic and nostalgia-tinged Hulu original documentary “Brats,” which was produced by Neon and Network Entertainment for ABC News Studios.

We see a bounty of film clips as well as snippets of the impossibly young actors appearing on shows hosted by the likes of Charlie Rose, Arsenio Hall, Merv Griffin and Phil Donahue, all of whom invoke the term “Brat Pack,” while in present day, the now 61-year-old McCarthy says, “If you were coming of age in the 1980s, then the Brat Pack was at or near the center of your cultural awareness. We were who you wanted to hang with, who you emulated, or envied, who you wanted to party with, but for those of experiencing the Brat Pack from the inside, it was something very different.”

• Actor Andrew McCarthy writing ‘Brat Pack’ era book

With McCarthy the director relying a bit too heavily on a raw, indie-style approach, McCarthy the intrepid narrator attempts to track down and set up interviews with his former colleagues, and it’s a surprise to learn he hasn’t talked to most of them in decades — not because of any feuds, but because after the article came out, they all took great pains to distance themselves, personally and professionally, so as not to participate as a punchline in their own lives.

The stars of “The Breakfast Club” — Judd Nelson (from right), Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall — were considered core members of The Brat Pack.

Universal Pictures

Catching up with Emilio Estevez in Estevez’ Malibu home, McCarthy notes they haven’t seen each other since the premiere night of “St. Elmo’s Fire,” while Estevez recalls how the two were supposed to do a film called “Young Man With Unlimited Capital,” but it didn’t happen after the article came out. Visiting Ally Sheedy, McCarthy says, “I had a crush on you,” to which Sheedy responds, “You did not, Andrew.” McCarthy also talks to “Brat Pack Adjacent” actors Jon Cryer and Lea Thompson, as well as cultural commentator Malcolm Gladwell, who tries to help McCarthy comes to grips with his legacy.

• ‘Sixteen Candles’ is Illinois’ favorite romantic comedy

The journey continues, with stops at the respective homes of Rob Lowe and Timothy Hutton and Demi Moore. (All of these actors have clearly done quite well for themselves, whether they’re living in oceanside palaces or rustic country homes.) It becomes clear that while many of them share McCarthy’s view that the article was unfair, none has been affected by it nearly as much as McCarthy. Moore says that while she felt the piece was unjust, “Why did we take it as an offense? Because we were young...” Lowe makes the case that those early 1980s movies paved the way for youth-oriented fare such as “Glee” and even “Friends.” We’re also reminded of how so many of those films have become beloved, generational touchstones.

We keep wondering if McCarthy will have a face-to-face with Blum, and sure enough, Blum welcomes McCarthy to his apartment. (They’ve never met before.) It’s a cordial, respectful exchange, even ending with a hug, though we can sense the underlying tension, with McCarthy trying to get Blum to acknowledge the harm the article caused, and Blum saying that yes, in retrospect it seems scathing, but, “I feel more redeemed than ever. ... You were all adults ... it wasn’t meant to destroy or hurt anyone.”

As for disappointments ... Judd Nelson wasn’t available for the documentary, while Molly Ringwald declined to participate. Perhaps she’s learned to let it go. One hopes McCarthy will be able to do the same after making this film, but we get the distinct impression the best he can hope for is to learn to live with it and realize it doesn’t define him.

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