The Nerd Degree

Age of Nerdquarius

Hey, like, what’s happening man? Don’t bogart that mint condition Batgirl #1. It’s fifty years on from the rise of the counterculture, so the nerds are gonna smear on some patchouli, chuck on some Ravi Shankar, and take you on the ultimate trip down the pop culture rabbit hole. Groovy.

Host: Erin Harrington, Moderator: Andrew Kepple

Panel: Shen Mansell and Liv Mckenzie vs Moata Tamaira and Ray Shipley

Can you smell what the Nerd Degree is cooking? Lace up your boots, ready your gimmicks, and grab your tag-team partner - it's time for us to lay the smackdown. Join us ringside and find out: what's the difference between a swanton bomb and a senton bomb? What do neon lightbulbs, folding chairs, and sledgehammers have in common? And just how backyard can backyard wrestling get? Only one team will walk away with the gold.

Hosted by Jennifer O'Sullivan

Featuring: Jeff Clark and Moata Tamaira vs Karen Healey and Brendon Bennetts

Special Guests: AK Sweet and a Masked Nerd

Fee-fi-fo-fum, the time for nerds to cook has come! Since humans first realised that putting stuff on a fire made it taste better, we've tried to make food our mouths enjoy. Join our nerds on a culinary adventure as they explore the often delicious and occasionally terrifying world of cooking.

Hosted by Brendon Bennetts and Karen Healey

Featuring: Dan Bain and Laura Borrowdale vs Erin Harrington and Emma Cusdin

Put down your fidget spinners, hunt out your stirruped Adidas trackies and fire up the fondue pot – in this episode the nerds will be grappling with trends, crazes and fads. Why is the 80s so hot right now? What’s with those cold shoulder shirts? Is finesse a good or a bad thing? We honestly don’t know, but we can say that nerds are always in style!*

*Nerds may not always be in style – capitalise while you can.

Hosted by Erin Harrington and Moata Tamaira

Featuring: Brendon Bennetts and Liv Mckenzie vs Andrew Kepple and Ben Allan

Take off your glasses and roll up your sleeves as the nerds are faced with any nerd's worst nightmare: fights. From gunfights to bunfights and barroom brawls to Dragon uppercuts (Hadouken!), it's gonna be a bareknuckled-knockdown-drag-out-no-holds-barred slapfest, and the only rule is no eye gouging (this goes for you too, audience). No quarter will be given until we prove that contrary to what you may have heard, violence in fact solves everything. So angry up your blood and hit a piece of celery with a mallet in a recording studio; this is gonna get bloody.

Hosted by Ben Allan and Brendon Bennetts

Featuring: Jeff Clark and Aaron Jelley vs Ray Shipley and Emma Cusdin

Christchurch 2017 Pun Battle Champion Jeff Clark (no withering comments, he already got a trophy) hosts a punderful show dealing with all things game: video games, board games, throne… games.

Featuring: Javier Jarquin, Karen Healey, Brendon Bennetts, Moata Tamaira, and Trubie-Dylan Smith

NOTE: We are changing back to once a month for episodes (but they will be longer)

The New Adventures of the Nerd Degree we ring in the nerdly year with a highly novel celebration of the new and the new-ish. We’ll be pitting original series and much-loved canon against new generations and reboots, to ask: is there really such as a thing as a new idea?

Hosted by Erin Harrington

Featuring: Andrew Kepple and Matt Powell vs Jen O'Sullivan and Javier Jarquin

Nerd Degree: New! Yeah!

Brendon Bennetts hosts 2017 In Review, in which our Nerds take a look back over the last year to investigate the highs, the lows, and the general weirdness that was 2017.

Featuring: Javier Jarquin and Centuri Chan vs Jennifer O'Sullivan and Matt Powell

Holodeck the Halls. It is the Nerd Degree Christmas special! Things get very nerdy, and very christmasy.

Hosted by Brendon Bennetts

Featuring: Erin Harrington and Moata Tamaira vs Karen Healey and Jeff Clark

Our Third Annual Star Wars Special! Recorded just a few hours before we all went to the midnight screening of The Last Jedi.

Hosted by Brendon Bennetts

Featuring: Andrew Kepple, Moata Tamaira, Centuri Chan, and Ben Allan