HD Heads-Up: August 3-9
July 25, 2013 
4 Comments
After a scandalous 16-month delay, TVNZ is poised to launch the “latest” drama series from the creator of Grey’s Anatomy.
But like The Carrie Diaries, it will be unveiled online before it goes to air on TV One in September.
TVNZ Ondemand will release Scandal, which stars Kerry Washington as a Washington DC crisis management “fixer”, in double-episodes from August 7.
It won’t be streamed in HD but TVNZ Ondemand does offer streaming speeds up to 1500kbps (when you watch Ondemand on your smarthone or tablet, the app selects the best match).
Reviews for the first season of seven episodes, which ABC kicked off in April 2012 and renewed for 22 more, were generally supportive rather than enthusiastic, in line with Time magazine’s verdict: “Scandal isn’t a deep show, but it’s bright enough.”
Whereas Variety dubbed it “The West Wing for Dummies“, the Wall Street Journal argued “it’s still a fun, fast ride, with lots of twists and turns, murder and menace, and after only a few episodes we know enough back story about most of the main characters to care what happens to them.”
Fans of Hawaii Five-O will care to know what’s happened to their haphazardly scheduled crime fix.
After nearing the stage of season two where repeats were poised to give way to first-run episodes, TV3 is pulling it from late-night Wednesday and replacing it with repeats of NCIS’s eighth season.
This may mean the network is rethinking the show’s primetime appeal and eyeing a Saturday night slot for the rest of the season, as this is where crime dramas that have underperformed on weeknights now rate surprisingly well.
In the meantime, Hawaii diehards will have to endure yet more rescheduling and delays.
Another TV3 surprise is the primetime resumption of Breakout Kings on Wednesdays. It will return post-3rd Degree, from episode 11 of season one.
It seems bizarre programming given it’s a year since Breakout Kings was last on air and the low-rating lighthearted thriller about ex-cons-turned-crimebusters lasted only two seasons, anyway.
In other HD news of note for the week starting August 3: Suburgatory has its season premiere on Monday (TV2, 8.00), The Closer has its series finale on Tuesday (TV One, 11.00) and 2 Broke Girls has its season finale on Wednesday (TV2, 9.00), following TV2’s replacement of The Big Bang Theory with, you guessed it, more re-runs (from season four).
TV2 also has the network HD premieres of Bad Teacher (8.30 Sunday) and The Haunting In Connecticut (10.20 Sunday) while TV3 is re-running the original Ice Age (7.00 Sunday).
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July 25, 2013 at 1:37 pm
TV3 is run by idiots. 5-0 fans would have already seen the missing episodes by other means.
Finally is all I can say for Scandal! The Saturday drama slot is clearly a winner for TV3 and one can hope The Good Wife will also screen there.
Big Bang Theory repeats have always been good for the ratings, as some seasons have had five repeats nows and still good. Cheers, Phil, I was going to ask TV3 why Hawaii Five-O was being pulled, but it seemed odd that it would get primetime as it failed twice. I hope it won’t be too long, but thinking it will be as SVU and Blue Bloods just started screening. Damn, but both quite good on Saturday night.
TV3 has confirmed it’s pondering a primetime slot for 5-O but is no closer to scheduling the new episodes.