Rude Awakenings is a New Zealand comedy-drama television series, which aired on TV One on Friday evenings. The first episode aired on 9 February 2007. By March it was averaging almost 320,000 viewers.
The series centres on two families who live next door to each other in a fashionable street in Ponsonby, a suburb of Auckland. The Rush family has just moved to their newly renovated house in Ponsonby from a lifestyle block in Kumeu. Dimity, the mother, is a human resources manager; Stuart, the father, is an anaesthetist, and Julian and Ollie are their sons. They immediately hit a wrong chord with their new neighbours, the Short family.
Arthur Short has recently had his wife Sharon leave him for a lesbian relationship, and he is unemployed and with few prospects. His two teenage daughters, Amber and Constance, live with him. Their house, where they have been tenants for the last 20 years, is up for sale, but they are determined to remain where they are.
The series has been released to DVD.