Dexter Delay Dogs Boardwalk Bow

Showtime’s pre-emption of Dexter next week for a holiday in the US will delay Boardwalk Empire’s season-four premiere on SoHo by another week.

Bad enough that Boardwalk Empire was going to air here two weeks after its HBO debut, anyway.

But now we’ll be running three weeks behind the US, with the premiere postponed until September 30.

That’s the day after Ray Donovan launches – not three weeks but three months after it wowed critics and viewers in the US.

Screening instead of the Dexter double-episode on Monday will be the HBO Phil Spector movie starring Al Pacino and Helen Mirren.

The Dexter pre-emption highlights the downside of NZ channels running shows so close to the US: They’re vulnerable to scheduling changes beyond their control.

It also reflects poorly on SoHo that so many of its series are running not days but weeks and months behind the US.

Hopefully the prospect of Quickflix launching an on-demand service here will spur Sky into providing subscribers quicker access to content for which they’re already being stung worse than one of Nucky Thompson’s Boardwalk chumps.