HD Heads-Up: August 24

➢ A law-and-new order is coming to TVNZ 1. In the week starting September 2, it will revive Criminal Minds (season 12, 8.30 Mondays) and launch Dear Murderer (8.30 Thursdays), a five-part dramatisation of flamboyant lawyer Mike Bungay’s life and times starring Mark Mitchinson. It’s from Screentime (Beyond the Darklands, How to Murder Your Wife) and received $3.945 million in NZ On Air funding. The production house describes it as not just a ‘crime and trial’ piece but “an intimate, personal encounter with one of New Zealand’s great and enduring characters” …

➢ Also new to TVNZ 1 that week will be the comedy Graves (11.00 Tuesdays), which already has streamed on-demand. Nick Note plays an ex-president whose wife (Sela Ward) is running for the White House. “It does not go deep. And yet in its moments, Graves can be quite persuasive, even moving,” the Los Angeles Times said. “Don’t scrutinise this series too closely,” urged the New York Times, “just enjoy the performances.” But Entertainment Weekly thought it “a lumpy blob of satire — witless and unadventurous in its targets” …

➢ Ending their runs in the week starting September 2 are Wild Alaska – Earth’s Frozen Kingdom, Madoff, The Replacement, Code:1, Poldark, NCIS and Ordinary Lies …

➢ Premiering the same week are: Diana: The Day the World Cried (Prime, 8.30 Wed-nesday), which commemorates the day of Princess Diana’s historic funeral twenty years on; the return of Surveillance Oz (TVNZ 2, 8.00 Thursday); and World’s Weirdest Homes (Prime, 7.30 Friday), which counts down the 10  weirdest houses on earth …

➢ Three will screen the network movie premiere of Everest at 7.00 on September 2. Other HD coming attractions for that week include:

• Frozen (TVNZ 2, 5.10 Saturday)
• Kung Fu Panda 2 (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Saturday)
• I Am Ali (Prime, 8.30 Saturday)
• She’s Out of My League (TVNZ 2, 9.40 Saturday)
• Open Gate (Three, 10.30 Saturday)
• The Hunger Games (TVNZ 2, 8.30 Sunday)
• Taken 2 (Three, 8.30 Sunday)
• Speed (Three, 8.30 Thursday).