HD Heads-Up: April 13

TV2 will freshen up its schedule in the last week of April with newcomers like Quantico, Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce and First Dates Australia, along with the return of My Kitchen Rules (which will air 7.30 Monday-Wednesday). FBI rookies drama Quantico will screen 8.30 Tuesdays, ahead of Empire, while First Dates and Girlfriends will become a Monday night duo …

USA Today said Quantico has a sprawling mystery structure “that will feel familiar to anyone who’s seen How to Get Away With Murder” while The Hollywood Reporter thought the pilot did “an admirable job keeping up the pacing, the interest and certainly the excitement level”. Echoed The Los Angeles Times:  “If hardly a moment feels plausible, the show has energy to spare and so many balls in the air by the end of the pilot that it’s hard not to want to see where they will come down” …

Girlfriends’ Guide is a comedy about a self-help author who reconnects with her single friends after separating from her husband. “It could easily be terrible, but the first two episodes are surprisingly entertaining,” said the New York Times while The Hollywood Reporter thought it “a bit of a shocker in that almost everything about it works.” New York magazine called the characters “pretty smart, and their frustrations are well articulated and vivid. Everything else, though, has been done better elsewhere” …

One critic dubbed First Dates Australia “excruciating in the best possible way” while The Australian observed: “As with highly successful British series on which it’s based, the show’s casting team does the job of a dating agency off camera, sifting through thousands of applications to find the best matches. They do it with kindness and empathy, judging from the first episode, and a wonderful feel for the very human comedy when two strangers try to hit it off” …

TV One will brighten up Saturday evenings with Britain’s Got Talent from April 23. Despite the title, expect more of an international line-up in 2016. According to Simon Cowell, “This year we have a tonne of people entering from around the world. In fact, they have even entered other shows and won other Got Talent shows” …

Lightbox has added War & Peace to its streaming line-up. Andrew Davies’ “sexed up” six-part adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s classic aired earlier this year on the BBC but, like Wolf Hall, it’s another literary giant that’s inexplicably bypassed broadcast here for streaming. The Blu-ray will be released here in mid-June with extras that will include: From Page to Screen, The Read Through, Making the Music, Count Rostov’s Dance, Rundale Palace and What is War & Peace? …

Sky will launch a David Attenborough pop-up channel next month to mark his 90th birthday. It will run from May 7-15 and showcase uninterrupted HD broadcasts of Planet Earth, Life, Frozen Planet, Africa and the remastered Trials of Life (only Blue Planet will be in SD). “This is the first time we have presented a BBC-themed pop-up channel to NZ audiences,” Tim Christlieb, director of channels for BBC Worldwide ANZ, says, “and we’re excited to be marking Sir David Attenborough’s 90^th birthday in this way” …