HD Heads-Up: August 15-21

➢➢ TVNZ 2 refreshes Thursday nights with the premieres of 99 to Beat UK (7.30) and Scammed: Getting Even (8.30) ahead of new Classic Kitchen Nightmares (9.30). Helmed by two fraternal soap stars, 99 is an ITV game show about ordinary people competing “stupidly simple” tasks that was axed after only one season — although Fox TV has just renewed the US version as “momentum builds” globally for the Belgian format. It’s co-hosted by Ryan Thomas (Coronation Street’s Jason Grimshaw) and his brother Adam (Emmerdale’s Adam Barton), who were outspoken about the show’s unexpected demise on ITV after it reached 12.5 million viewers and was streamed over four million times on ITVX …

➢➢ Scammed is a six-part series about stings that expose scammers and streams on Fox News’ Fox Nation in the US. “Together with their elite team of ‘Revengers,’ a network of tech experts and digital investigators, they infiltrate scam operations worldwide to deliver what victims rarely get: accountability, closure, and revenge,” reads the blurb …

➢➢ New to Sunday nights on Sky Open are Whale with Steve Backshall (7.30) and Days That Shocked the World (9.30). “You’ll have a whale of a time watching this man-made series,” quipped The Telegraph of the former, a Sky Nature series that’s “a refreshing change of pace from the BBC Attenborough model”; the latter opens with the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster using dramatic re-enactments and archive footage …

➢➢ Hacked, a documentary about cyber attacks close to home, heads a new season of Documentary NZ (TVNZ 1, 8.30 Monday) while The Drowning Pool (TVNZ 1, 12.35am Tuesday) is a BBC3 documentary about the mysterious death of millionaire businesswoman Paula Leeson …

➢➢ S12 of Ice Road Truckers (Sky Open, 7.30 Thursday) leads into four-part docuseries Platoon (8.30), which follows the training of troops, in this case 13 Platoon, D Company, 5th Battalion The Rifles, who have six months to become a deployable fighting unit …

➢➢ Ending their runs are:

• Bergerac 
• House of Gods
• A Woman of Substance
• Highway Cops
• Extreme Tow Truckers 
• Cape Carnage: Killer Catch …

➢➢ Live/delayed free-to-air sport includes:

• NPC Rugby: Canterbury v Bay of Plenty (TVNZ 1, 2.00 Saturday)
• NPC Rugby: Auckland v Hawke’s Bay (TVNZ 1, 7.00 Saturday)
• NRL 2026: Eels v Cowboys (Sky Open, 7.00 Saturday)
• NRL 2026: Brisbane Broncos v Warriors (Sky Open, 11.15 Saturday)
• NPC Rugby: Southland v Waikato (TVNZ 1, 2.00 Sunday)
• NRLW: Tigers v Warriors (Sky Open, 3.15 Sunday) …

➢➢ HD coming attractions include:

• My Big Fat Greek Wedding (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Saturday)
• Marmaduke (Three, 7.00 Saturday)
• Little Monsters (Whakaata Māori, 7.30 Saturday)
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (TVNZ 2, 8.50 Saturday)
• I Don’t Know How She Does It (Three, 8.50 Saturday)
• Promising Young Woman (Whakaata Māori, 9.10 Saturday)
• Lars and the Real Girl (TVNZ 2, 10.45 Saturday)
• Bridge to Terabithia (TVNZ 2, 3.05 Sunday)
• Mārama (Whakaata Māori, 8.45 Sunday)
• Logan Luck ((TVNZ 2, 9.00 Sunday)
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters (Three, 9.05 Sunday)
• The Grudge 2 (TVNZ 2, 12.25am Monday)
• Ronin (Sky Open, 8.30 Monday)
• Bad Neighbours (Duke, 9.45 Monday)
• Skyfall (Duke, 10.10 Tuesday)
• The Vow (Sky Open, 7.30 Friday)
• Mavka: The Forest Song (Whakaata Māori, 7.35 Friday)
• Corsage (Whakaata Māori, 9.10 Friday).