In the arts, billiards and death are often interlocked.

“A Game of Pool,” the 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone, pits the best living pool player against the best dead pool player in a contest where the winner earns the title of greatest pool player ever, and the loser forfeits his life.

Two years later, in the poem “We Real Cool,” Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Gwendolyn Brooks tells the story of seven pool players at the Golden Shovel: “We Real cool. | We Left school. | We Lurk late. | We Strike straight. | We Sing sin. | We Thin gin. | We Jazz June. | We Die soon.”

The aptly-titled anime short film Death Billiards, created in 2013, focuses on two men who must compete for their lives in a game of pool. The gotcha is they’re both already dead and the match is to determine who is headed for heaven or hell.

Into this global smorgasbord of billiards macabre we should add “The Waiting Game,” a 30-minute television drama that aired in November 2008 on Maori Television in New Zealand. “The Waiting Game” was one-sixth of Table Plays, a grassroots series of low-budget dramas, funded by NZ On Air, that paired emerging writers with established directors, and relied on local crews, actors, and settings.

Written by Rebecca Tansley and directed by Anna Marbrook, “The Waiting Game” envisions purgatory as a one-table snooker room where two players compete.  The winner gets to live, the loser moves on. The episode focuses on a match between a distraught single mother (Eilish Moran), who has just arrived and refuses to believe her fate will be resolved by a snooker game, and a celebrated TV actor (Ben Farry), who is impatient to get back to his life.  But, a lot of conversation and soul-searching can occur over a game of snooker, and while the winner of the match may be obvious, the outcome is less so.

Due to the cramped locale and the tight ping-pong of dialogue among the two players, and the third character, a Purgatory rule enforcer-cum-maître d’ (Rima Te Wiata), “The Waiting Game” feels more like a one-act theater production than a television episode. And, while I wish the snooker-playing had been far more convincing, I appreciated the original storyline and its ability to create tension independent of the match.

But, I have to admit to a strong degree of bias, for a good degree of my viewing joy was attributable to the circuitous journey I had locating the episode and the most amiable and facilitative cast of individuals who contributed to my quest.

That search first began in early 2019 when I reached out the writer Ms. Tansley. Replying immediately, she shared that she did not have a copy of “The Waiting Game” but encouraged me to connect with Richard Thomas, the executive producer of Table Plays and a 30-year veteran of New Zealand television production.

Unable to reach Mr. Thomas, I put the search on the backburner for about a year until last April, when I attempted to find a different inroad, this time by contacting the New Zealand Film Commission. The people at NZFC could not have been friendlier, and while they too couldn’t connect me to Mr. Thomas, they did put me in touch with the director, Ms. Marbrook.

Ms. Marbrook graciously shared with me more history about “The Waiting Game” and then added that the master file had been sent to the local television station in Dunedin, New Zealand, as they did a subsequent airing of the full Table Plays series.

After some further on-the-ground sleuthing by Ms. Marbrook and Ms. Tansley, they encouraged me to reach out to 39 Southern Television, the local station formerly known as Dunedin Television and Channel 9. That prompt led me to connect with Luke Chapman, the Production Manager, who warmly recalled working on the show and the “clever script from Rebecca.” Mr. Chapman indicated he only had “The Waiting Game” on DVD. After ascertaining my intentions were good, Mr. Chapman agreed to convert the DVD into a format I could watch. Two months later, he published in the July 26 Otago Daily Times (which, in addition to 39 Southern Television, is owned by Allied Press) a link to the episode. You can now watch it here.

Thank you to everyone who helped me locate “The Waiting Game.” As was often written to me during the numerous email exchanges, kia ora tatou.