HD Heads-Up: August 14 – 20

➢➢ TVNZ 1 will exit the Tokyo Olympics with what it hopes will be a winning weekend of NZ and UK drama. On Saturday nights, from August 14, it will double-bill Anne Boleyn and It’s a Sin and on Sundays, from August 15, season two of One Lane Bridge and newcomer The Panthers. It’s a sharp programming strategy that may fall short of ratings gold but at least reflects a primetime commitment to a genre that will continue three nights in a row with Monday’s My Life is Murder (which premieres on August 9). Moreover, the Saturday stablemates will have only niche appeal but given they’ll screen on traditionally the lowest-rating night of the week for free-to-air TV, TVNZ 1 has little to lose by offering viewers a distinctive alternative to movies, sports and reality shows that reinforces its standing as the country’s flagship channel …

➢➢ The Panthers is a period drama that will air 9.30 weekly but can be binged on TVNZ OnDemand. Set in 1974, it stars Dimitrius Koloamatangi as a radical Tongan who, inspired by the Black Panther movement in the US, organises young street gangsters and university students into The Polynesian Panthers to fight “the system” as revolutionaries. Continues the blurb: “When Trump-esque Prime Minister Robert Muldoon (Roy Billing) comes to power, he wreaks havoc, fuelling the divide between white and Polynesian New Zealanders and commencing racially targeted immigration raids.” Hopefully, the drama will be more nuanced and thoughtful than the synopsis suggests …

➢➢ S2 of One Lane Bridge has Detective Ariki Davis (Dominic Ona-Ariki) investigating a murder case against the backdrop of an intense water rights row in Queenstown, when eco-activists go to war with the region’s business leaders. Joel Tobeck, Alison Bruce, Michelle Langstone and Jared Turner co-star …

➢➢ Anne Boleyn, a Channel 5 drama that was controversial for its casting of black actors in key roles, including Jodie Turner-Smith as Henry VIII’s second wife, will lead out from the return of Tipping Point: Lucky Stars (7.00) and Jamie’s Easy Meals for Everyone (8.00) into It’s a Sin at 9.35. It’s a Sin, which already has streamed OnDemand, is a Russell T Davies dramatisation of the impact of AIDS on the gay community in ’80s London. The Guardian acclaimed it as “a poignant masterpiece” while The Spinoff hailed it as “an impassioned call to look back, and to learn”. Vanity Fair called it “an affecting AIDS drama but an incomplete history” prone to “didactic point-making” and the Los Angeles Times said it “replicates troubling AIDS crisis tropes” …

➢➢ Emergency Call USA (Three, 9.30 Mondays from August 16) is a real-life spin on 9-1-1 that documents the first few crucial minutes of emergencies from the perspective of 911 call takers. The series premiere sounds like a typical episode of its fictional counterpart: A woman’s car is stolen with her child in the backseat; a terrified 9-year-old performs CPR on her grandfather; teenage hikers fend off a potential bear attack. Said Reality Blurred: “It’s a noble goal to spotlight and celebrate essential workers … but Emergency Call fumbles its opportunity to truly profile them, and instead leans in to the sensational and voyeuristic” …

➢➢ New the same week will be the S4 premiere of Seal Team (Prime, 9.30 Sunday) and Inside Britain’s Secret Nuclear Submarine (Duke, 8.30 Wednesday), a one-off documentary set on board one of the UK’s nuclear missile submarines at sea as it prepares for a new mission …

➢➢ UglyDolls (Three, 7.00 Saturday) will be the week’s only network movie premiere. Other HD coming attractions will include:

• Race to Witch Mountain (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Saturday)
• Dr Seuss’ The Lorax (Maori TV, 7.00 Saturday)
• The Lost Boys (Duke, 8.30 Saturday)
• The Remains of the Day (Maori TV, 8.30 Saturday)
• Bad Teacher (Three, 8.45 Saturday)
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (TVNZ 2, 8.50 Saturday)
• Twisted Sisters (Three, 10.40 Saturday)
• Blow (TVNZ 2, 11.05 Saturday)
• Pleasantville (TVNZ 2, 1.20am Sunday)
• The Bourne Identity (TVNZ 2, 8.30 Sunday)
• Edge of Tomorrow (Three, 8.30 Sunday)
• Raging Bull (Maori TV, 8.30 Sunday)
• Family Vanished (TVNZ 2, 10.50 Sunday)
• Faster (Prime, 8.30 Monday)
• The Mechanic (Duke, 8.30 Tuesday)
• Fat Albert (Duke, 10.15 Tuesday)
• Ocean’s Twelve (Three, 7.30 Friday)
• Dude, Where’s My Car? (Duke, 8.30 Friday)
• What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (Maori TV, 8.30 Friday).