HD Heads-Up: August 17-23

August 8, 2024 0 Comments

➢➢ Three unleashes a flood of new programming, from more petrolhead shows for Top Gear fans to a fresh line-up of Kiwi comedy. Replacing The Traitors NZ are Tempting Fortune (7.00 Monday) and Top Gear Australia (7.00 Tuesday). TG’s Paddy McGuinness fronts the former, in which 12 contestants on a gruelling South African wilderness trek have to withstand temptations like hot showers and cold beers to win. “It wasn’t the contestants’ ineptitude that made for such strangely absorbing telly, but their intriguingly different approaches to life,” said The Times. “Like The Traitors and the best of Big Brother, Tempting Fortune shows what human beings are made of. I’m sorely tempted to watch the whole series” …

➢➢ Top Gear: Australia leads into Aussie Truck Rehab (8.25 Tuesday), in which a heavy haulage crew tries to get wrecks back on the road, starting with saving a vintage rig valued at $500,000. Three’s new flash rigs craze revs up with the August 11 premiere of Heavy Tow Truckers Down Under (7.35 Sundays) …

➢➢ A new season of Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont Spelling Bee (Three, 7.00 Thursday) tests the literacy skills of Dai Henwood, Tom Sainsbury, Kura Turawhenua and Nina Oyama ahead of the S2 premiere of lesbian motherhood romp Double Parked (7.55) …

➢➢ After the Flood (Three, 8.00 Wednesday) stars Peaky Blinders’ Sophie Rundle as a policewoman investigating a flood victim’s suspected murder. Reviews ranged from “unexpectedly riveting” (The Guardian) to “Happy Valley-lite” (The Telegraph). It already streams on ThreeNow …

➢➢ TVNZ 1 continues its lighthearted Sunday night crime drama run with the premiere of Marlow Murder Club (8.30 Sunday). “Death in Paradise creator Robert Thorogood’s new series is entertaining enough, but so far unremarkable,” was Radio Times’ verdict while The Daily Telegraph dubbed it “crime so cosy it’s positively soporific … Everyone needs comfort food from time to time and this was a bangers and mash of a detective show”. It stars Samantha Bond as a retired archaeologist, Cara Horgan as a vicar’s wife and Jo Martin as a dog-walker who forge an unlikely friendship to investigate a string of killings …

➢➢ Made in Korea: The K-Pop Experience (TVNZ 2, 7.30 Friday) drops five British boy-band wannabes into the K-pop capital of the world, Seoul, where they undergo “the ultimate K-pop boot camp” devised by the executive producer of The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent …

➢➢ Robson Green’s Weekend Escapes spearheads a new Sunday line-up on Sky Open. The 7.00 lifestyle house about the great outdoors leads into Saving Britain’s Wildlife in a new slot (7.40), ahead of the free-to-air premiere of Wheel Blacks: Bodies on the Line (8.40), a repeat of the HBO Hugh Grant-Nicole Kidman thriller The Undoing (9.45), the S2 premiere of And Just Like That (10.50), and the David (The Wire) Simon flop about Big Apple borough politics, Show Me a Hero (11.50) …

➢➢ Another HBO relic, but of a much better vintage, is the David (NYPD Blue) Milch western Deadwood, which starts its first FTA run on TVNZ 1 (12.55am Sunday). Although the series first screened here on SoHo, via Sky’s HBO deal, it’s distributed by Paramount Global …

➢➢ Curious moves are afoot on Eden. The channel’s dropping its Saturday night movie for a psuedo-doco supernatural double-bill and summoning from the past 2017 spin-off Blacklist: The Redemption for a 9.30 Thursday run. Ghost Adventures (8.30 Saturday) follows a trio of haunted house investigators; The Osbournes Want to Believe (9.30 Saturday) has Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne’s son Jack trying to convert them from paranormal sceptics into true believers …

➢➢ Duke rolls out new seasons of warhorses Neighborhood Wars (9.20 Wednesday) and History’s Greatest Escapes With Morgan Freeman (8.30 Thursday) along with the series premiere of self-explanatory Customer Wars (9.50 Wednesday) …

➢➢ Late-night laughs coming to Sky Open include Curb Your Enthusiasm S11 (10.25 Wednesday) and Sky Open Mic: Nikki Glaser: Good Clean Filth (11.00 Friday) …

➢➢ Live/delayed FTA sports coverage includes:

Heartland Championship: King Country v Mid-Canterbury (Sky Open, 2.00 Saturday)
Lipovitan-D Rugby Championship: NZ v Argentina (Sky Open, 9.00 Saturday)
NRL Premiership: North Queensland Cowboys v Canberra Raiders (Sky Open, 11.30 Saturday)
UFC 305 Prelims (Sky Open, midday Sunday)
Farah Palmer Cup: Canterbury vs Waikato (Sky Open, 2.00 Sunday)
Preliminary Regatta Barcelona Day 1 (Three, midnight Thursday and Friday)
NRL Premiership: New Zealand Warriors v Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs (Sky Open, 7.30 Friday) …

➢➢ Ending their runs are Alice & Jack, Banged Up, Taskmaster Australia, Grand Designs Australia and Interior Design Masters With Alan Carr …

➢➢ HD coming attractions include: