7 Days is a New Zealand comedy game show focused on current events, hosted by Jeremy Corbett and created by thedownlowconcept. It has aired on Three since its premiere in 2009. Two teams, consisting of a team captain until 2022, nearly always Paul Ego and Dai Henwood and other comedians, answer questions about stories from the last week; since 2022, the team captains have changed each week. , 7 Days had aired for 15 series with a 16th planned for 2024.
Show format
At the start of each show, Jeremy Corbett announces a content warning, saying "the following show is for adults only and contains bad language that may offend some people". This is often followed by an opening joke based on an event in the past seven days. On some occasions, the content warning became the joke – including being said in a parody of Downfall (following several Auckland schoolboys saluting the Nazi flag), being missed out completely (while the Prime Minister was out of the country), and being texted while driving (two days before the ban on use of mobile phones while driving came into force). While the show is normally screened at 9:30pm and originally 10pm, the episode on 21 October 2011 was screened at the earlier time of 7:30pm and as a result was a PGR rated show. The opening segment mentioned the show was PGR and then replaced a few swear words with cleaner equivalents such as fudge. The show was moved to the earlier time to coincide with the screening of the Rugby World Cup 2011 Bronze Final.
After the title card, Corbett introduces the leaders of each team, normally Paul Ego for Team 1 and Dai Henwood for Team 2, although one episode featured an all-Australian team replacing Dai Henwood's team. After the leader of each team is introduced, the leader introduces the rest of their team. Regular team members include Ben Hurley, Josh Thomson, Steve Wrigley, Jeremy Elwood, Urzila Carlson, Jesse Griffin, Madeleine Sami, Michèle A'Court and Justine Smith. Special guest comedians appear on some episodes.
There are usually 5-7 games in each show, with "What's the Story" always being the first, and "Caption That" usually being last. After the teams guess the story, Corbett confirms the actual story before adding a joke of his own. In early episodes, Corbett also intervened if the joke made was in bad taste, or he became the butt of the joke, yelling "get out" and making the contestant pretend to leave.
Teams are allocated "points" at the end of the round based on numbers in the news. In earlier episodes, Corbett randomly allocated point to the teams based on their performance. The team winning the most rounds wins the episode, but this is not always the case.
An MVP was awarded in earlier episodes which was later removed. One of the panellists thanks NZ On Air to close the show.
Games
Games played include:
What's the Story? News footage with the sound removed or a photo, usually from 3 News but occasionally from ONE News, is shown while team members make humorous comments and then try and work out what the story is about.
Caption That
A caption contest: a news photograph is shown and the teams are required to invent their own (usually humorous) captions for it.
My Kid Could Draw That
A primary school child explains a picture he/she has drawn about a recent news story, and the teams must work out what it is before the kid tells them what it is.
Answers
Teams are given an answer related to a news event in the last 7 days and are required to work out what the question is, in the style of the American quiz Jeopardy!.
History
A video clip of a New Zealand historical event is played, and a person shown in the clip is then brought into the studio together with three look-alikes. The teams are required to guess which one is the person in the video. This is based on a segment in the British pop music quiz Never Mind the Buzzcocks. The segment was once played with when teams had to guess which one of the group of four was a Lawson quintuplet (New Zealand's only living set of quintuplets), not realising that the four people were four of the five quintuplets.
Community News
A newspaper headline is given, but with missing words, and the teams are required to work out the missing words. This is based on a round from the UK news quiz Have I Got News for You.
Slice of Seven
A musician comes on to the show and sings a song about a news story and the teams have to try guess the story. The name of the segment references the 1986 Dave Dobbyn single Slice of Heaven.