HD Heads-Up: April 13

TVNZ has just announced Nigel Latta and John Campbell will present What Next?,  a multi-platform series that will explore how NZ will look 20 years from now. Screening live over five consecutive nights, it will ponder if the world is heading towards the apocalypse or a better, brighter future. The series will combine a panel of futurists with research from the University of Auckland’s School of Psychology and the results of a soon-to-be-released national survey to consider the preservation of the environment, the direction of the economy, the possibilities of technology and how to adapt to current and upcoming social issues. TVNZ says viewers will be able to engage with the series on multiple platforms, putting forward their point of view from the initial questionnaire to engaging online with the TVNZ 1 live broadcasts (for which a screening date has yet to be announced) …

Movie fans can look forward to a blockbuster weekend in the third week of April, when five network premieres will screen. The biggest will be Three’s Jurassic World (8.10 Sunday), which will face off against TVNZ 2’s Fury (8.45) and overlap TVNZ 1 ‘s Woman in Gold (9.30). On Saturday, Three will debut The Water Diviner (9.15) following TVNZ 2’s premiere of Into the Woods (7.00). The week’s other HD coming attractions will include Here Comes the Boom (TVNZ 2, 9.25 Saturday), Little Man (TVNZ 2, 11.30 Saturday), At Any Price (TVNZ 2, 12.15am Sunday), Cabin Fever: Patient Zero (TVNZ 2, 12.15am Monday) and Jumper (Three, 8.30 Thursday) …

Three will overhaul Wednesday nights with the return of Grand Designs (opposite Prime’s premiere of Horror Homes) and Hawaii Five-O from April 26. Grand Designs’ 17th season will air 8.30 and H50 will resume its fifth season from episode 18. They will be preceded by All Star Family Feud: North vs. South at 7.30. Another ASFF special will air 7.30 Tuesday and on Friday at 9.45 Three will launch another local special, part one of the 2017 Flick Electric Co. Comedy Gala …

TVNZ 1 also is revamping two of its lowest-rating nights: Saturdays and Mondays. On April 22, it will premiere as a double episode at 7.00 The Next Great Magician (which will permit an extra half-hour of Coronation Street to screen that night), and on Monday it will debut season two of Coast …

Unusually, Coast will air at 8.00 rather than at the traditional 8.30 juncture, bumping Fair Go stablemate Highway Cops from 8.00 to 9.00. It’s risky gambit, given Coast will start halfway through TVNZ 2’s top-rating My Kitchen Rules and Three’s The Bachelor NZ. But hammocking Coast between two factual entertainment hits may siphon off enough viewers to improve 1’s overall ratings from 7.30-9.30. Season two of Coast will explore the Coromandel, Hawke’s Bay, Taranaki, the West Coast, Banks Peninsula, Christchurch surrounds and Stewart Island …

The Next Great Magician is an illusionists’ talent quest that one critic accused of playing a trick on viewers. “Katherine Mills was easily the best of the acts,” the Daily Mail argued. “But the act crowned winners was a couple of Scottish stand-up comedians whose ‘magic’ consisted of vomiting up liquids. It was not just unpleasant, it was unimpressive. Why they were chosen was not explained. There were no judges, and no public vote: the magicians picked a winner among themselves, in a backroom. Since they were discussing the secrets of magic, we were not privileged to eavesdrop. That left the whole show feeling like a trick had been played on viewers” …

TVNZ 1 will screen live HD coverage of the Anzac Day National Commemorative Service from 11am on April 25 and precede it with a couple of Anzac-theme documentaries while Three will fill its non-commercial morning with movies. TVNZ 2 and Prime will have normal weekday programming, with the exception of 2’s HD re-run of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs …

Your Home and Garden managing editor Shelley Ferguson and The Block NZ’s Peter Wolfkamp will host Three’s new property series, Slice of Paradise. They will work with prospective buyers competing to get a step up on the property ladder. Meanwhile, Fair Go’s Matt Chisholm will host Survivor NZ, which TVNZ 2 has announced will air 7.30 Sunday and Monday from May 7 …

Ending their runs in the week starting April 22 are Broadchurch, The Undateables, 800 Words and Sensing Murder …