New Zealand series After the Party is a stunner

Sometimes a network's description of a program can go just that bit too far.

Yeah, I'm looking right at you ABC.

The first line of description of this excellent New Zealand series gives away a plot point that doesn't occur until the end of the first episode.

It is hinted at throughout the show, enough to give you some idea of what might have happened - but also to leave a few gaps to stoke your curiosity.

I'd watched this show after reading the description, so I knew what we were dealing with here. I sat through the whole show wishing I didn't know because the way the script unfolds is quite tantalising.

Granted, the detail of the plot point was still somewhat of a surprise, but it was a bit of a downer to know it was already coming.

So, in a spoiler-free synopsis, the show sees the ex-husband of teacher Penny turn up back in town five years after an incident that ended their marriage.

People have taken sides on the issue, and it is surprising just how entrenched they have become half a decade later.

Because the exact nature of the incident is kept somewhat unclear - it is shown in the form of flashbacks sprinkled throughout the first episode - it leaves the viewer wary of making any allegiances with a particular character's view point.

Maybe Penny is telling the truth. Maybe those work colleagues who ended up on the other side are the ones who are right.

One thing is clear - Penny is a forthright person, not content to toe the line if it will avoid ruffling a few feathers.

That doesn't help her once the husband returns; she ends up re-prosecuting the whole incident, opening up old wounds and even driving away those who might have been on her side.

Is there anyone out there who thinks Amazon is a lovely, friendly, employee-focused company where no-one ever has to, say, urinate in a bottle because they have no time for toilet break?

I feel fairly safe in saying that, no, there isn't.

Yet the guy behind this doco, one Oobar Butler, seems to believe that all this stuff is shocking and new.

In fact he spends half the documentary on how not-good Amazon is, mentioning the wee in the bottle stuff as well as the union-busting, the spying on employees etc etc.

Then Butler decided to take the bottles of wee he found outside Amazon depots, repackage it as an energy drink and sell it on Amazon's website.

Then he is compelled to try and get the product to the No1 position in its category.

I'm not quite sure what the point of that stunt really is. If you're going to carry out a prank like that, it has to have some deeper relevance, a darker meaning.

So Amazon let him sell bottles of urine on his website. Whoop-de-doo - they'll sell almost anything.

After spending the first half of the show talking about bad the company is to its employees, Butler's whole plan is to make a stupid joke that really does nothing for those workers he was just pretending to be so concerned about.

In fact, if feels like the piss-bottle gag was the first idea and the faux outrage at Amazon came in later to serve as a justification.