HD Heads-Up: February 15-21

Homer has a new home and the series-isation of Sunday nights is complete with the long overdue debut of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD.

TV2’s superhero series will take over the Sunday Premiere Movie slot on February 16 while former Sunday super-‘toon The Simpsons will belatedly resume the same week, from episode 17 of season 24, in a new 7.30 Friday slot.

SHIELD will screen on a double-bill with another newcomer, The Tomorrow People, while The Simpsons’ lead-out will be the final season of How I Met Your Mother.

It beggars belief that TV3 would sacrifice Modern Family as a Simpsons stablemate when renegotiating its 20^th Century Fox TV deal and instead team it with a sitcom that was so unpopular on the network originally that it was shunted off to Four for most of its run.

TV3 also is rolling out new seasons of Road Cops (7.30 Monday), The GC (8.00 Monday), Cadbury Dream Factory (7.30 Thursday) and The Graham Norton Show (8.30 Friday).

The Simpsons and The GC aren’t the only returning series to screen in different slots: TV2 is shifting Pretty Little Liars to 12.30pm Sundays, where it looks set to screen in double episodes; debuting the latest season of Revolution 10.30 Monday on the back of The Walking Dead; and reviving Scandal as a 10.30 Tuesday stablemate for Revenge.

TV2 will launch its spruced-up Sunday line-up with the network movie premiere of The Muppets in a new 6.30 Sunday Treasures slot while TV3 has the network movie premiere of Chronicle on Monday at 8.30.

Meanwhile, TV2 is ditching Hot in Cleveland from its Monday comedy block and switching slots for Trophy Wife, which will now screen after The Middle at 8.00; Super Fun Night becomes the 8.30 lead-in to Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

The changes take effect from February 10, although an hour-long episode of Shortland Street will pre-empt The Middle for that week (it returns on February 17 for its 100^th episode).

Finally, and sadly, the long-awaited House of Lies, which TV3 was going to air in HD 18 months ago, has gone the way of Raising Hope, Californication and Nurse Jackie to screen in SD on Four from 9.30 Friday in double eps.

In other HD programming news for the week starting February 15:

• Hyundai Country Calendar resumes (TV One, 7.00 Saturday) ahead of another season of Dynamo: Magician Impossible specials (TV One, 7.30 Saturday)
• Another Saturday night special, The Beatles: The Night That Changed America – A Grammy Salute (TV One, 9.40), also may screen in HD but this has yet to be confirmed
• Worthy re-runs include the documentary When a City Falls (TV3, 10.30 Saturday), The Pacific in weekly double episodes (TV One, 11.40 Saturday) and Nature’s Great Events (TV one, 5.00 Sunday)
• Everyone’s favourite boy wizard’s back in The Complete Harry Potter Season, starting with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (TV2, 7.00 Saturday)
• Richard Hammond’s Miracles of Nature (TV3, 7.30 Wednesday) investigates the extraordinary superpowers of the natural world in a series The Guardian dubbed “perfectly entertaining – fascinating, in places – but not scientifically taxing”
• Hercules: The Human Bear (TV3, 8.30 Wednesday) is a documentary about a grizzly bear from Scotland who was trained for TV cameos
• Ending their runs are Happy Endings (TV2, 10.30 Wednesday) and Anger Management (TV2, 11.00 Wednesday)
• Hens Behaving Badly is a new documentary series about brides to be celebrating their last night as single women (TV3, 9.30 Thursday)
• Guesting on The Graham Norton Show (TV3, 8.30 Friday) are Martin Freeman, Ben Stiller and Jamie Oliver
• TV2’s Friday Blockbuster is a 9.00 re-run of Sherlock Holmes.