HD Heads-Up: February 15

❏ Wow! What a week for HD on free-to-air TV. Prime at last has got with the programme (even if its HD access is limited to Sky’s platform because of the cost of extending it to Freeview|HD), TV2 is unleashing its biggest week of the new season and TV3 will try to kick-start primetime with the Dai Henwood game show, Family Feud. It starts 5.30 tonight and could be the gambit that pays off against TV One’s ageing Millionaire Hot Seat as the lead-in to Newshub Live at 6pm. Henwood’s a funny and clever comedian and although his schtick won’t be as profane or lewd as it is on 7 Days, his personality and energy should stand in stark contrast to Millionaire’s buttoned-down Eddie McGuire …

❏ It’s been years since NZ TV last had a local game show in primetime. Twenty years ago the likes of Sale of the Century and Wheel of Fortune spun ratings gold. And with Family Feud, MediaWorks has identified a cheap and cheerful gap in the market that has far better prospects than the awful Come Dine With Me NZ. Ideally, it would be the lead-in to TV3’s own serial but, as the Sunday papers revealed, that possibility appeared doomed from the outset. Putting aside the industry and personality politics of the funding feud between NZ On Air and MediaWorks, there isn’t room for two publicly funded soaps, especially when one sounded like a homegrown version of the Aussie serial it would have been scheduled against with suicidal zeal, Home and Away …

❏ Nonetheless, given the sameness of the primetime dramas that NZOA is investing in, kudos to MediaWorks for at least contemplating a Shortland Street alternative. As Doug Coutts notes in his preview of Filthy Rich, which starts tonight (TV2, 8.30), “Following in the footsteps of Nothing Trivial and Outrageous Fortune, Filthy Rich sticks to the formula – there’s nothing new here.” Of course, the twist with this commission is it will screen twice-weekly on consecutive nights in a daring scheduling move that’s the kind of FTA initiative we can expect to see more of in a bid to instantly build momentum for a high-stakes drama series …

❏ The multiple nights strategy proved successful for TV One’s Doctor Foster and will extend to TV2 repeating the Filthy Rich instalments in a late-night Sunday two-hour block (as it does off-peak with Shortland Street and Home and Away). The BBC has attempted something similar with its excellent Dickensian while Prime is adopting a same-week tack to boost sampling of Limitless, which premieres on Wednesday and will be repeated 10.30 Sundays after Elementary …

❏ Family Feud and Filthy Rich aren’t tonight’s only HD newcomers, with TV2 resurrecting The Walking Dead at 9.30. According to The Guardian, “After the bait-and-switches of last season, it looks like AMC zombie drama will give fans some clear answers when it returns … Showrunner Scott Gimple thinks that this episode is one of the best and most action-packed of the series. He told Deadline, ‘It’s taking us to a closed-quarters situation that is both emotionally explosive and terrifying in as much as people are closed in with an army of Walkers. It’s a horrific and unique type of claustrophobia.'” For those willing to risk spoilers, see post-mortems from The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Deadline Hollywood …

❏ Don’t overlook tonight’s SoHo premiere of Vinyl, which has averaged a US critics approval rating of 71%. The San Francisco Chronicle dubbed the ’70s music industry drama “big, noisy and crazy brilliant” while the NY Daily News thought it “a gritty, bloody knuckled rock ‘n’ roll fairy tale as told by the best in the business”. But Newsday felt it was “a compelling idea in search of a compelling story” and The Atlantic argued: “It is exactly the story rock has told about itself time and again, and not a ton is gained in the retelling here” …