HD Heads-Up: February 22

➢ Three is reinstating Survivor in primetime for its 36^th season, Ghost Island. It will launch with a double episode on March 3, two days after its CBS premiere, and will air 7.00 Saturdays. Two groups of 10 castaways will be sent to a haunted island filled with Survivor relics from previous seasons. Will they be able to learn from the past mistakes of others and “reverse the curse” or will the past come back to haunt them? …

➢ “They are almost all super-fans and really know the show and its history, which adds a lot to a season like this,” producer Jeff Probost told Entertainment Weekly. “I think the audience will find a lot of very likable people to root for and probably a couple that you may actively root against. But isn’t that always the case!” …

➢ Veteran Survivor producer Mark Burnett, meanwhile, has received a 10-episode order from CBS for a new competition series, TKO, which Variety reports will feature one player racing through obstacles while literally under fire from other contestants. “TKO is unlike any other competition show on television,” Burnett claims. “It’s an obstacle course meets dodgeball. It will create amazing viral moments” …

➢ TVNZ 1’s latest property show, The Week the Landlords Moved In (7.30 Wednesdays from March 7), has a Wife Swap twist: It challenges landlords to live in one of their own rentals, on their tenants’ budget. “Under a jaunty disguise, this is an eye-opening series about two Britains, about the gulf in understanding between haves and have-nots,” said the Daily Telegraph. Or, as The Guardian quipped: “It illustrates not just a housing crisis but yet another deep division in the country, between the have-nots and the have-lots (of property)” …

➢ Rolling Stone: Stories From the Edge (Prime, 9.35 Tuesdays from March 6) chronicles the last 50 years of American music, politics and popular culture through the story of the magazine that treated rock ‘n’ roll as a cultural force. Oscar-winner Alex Gibney co-directed the four-hour HBO documentary, which Variety thought felt more like “a supercharged anniversary issue” and which the San Francisco Chronicle said was “informative and self-congratulatory, at times seeming to inflate Rolling Stone’s role in the culture somewhat beyond truth” …

➢ TVNZ.co.nz will stream Heathers, a black comedy based on the 1988 movie of the same name, from March 8. It will be available within hours of its US premiere on Paramount Network (previously Spike TV), which is using the high school reboot to reboot itself (TV Guide dubbed it “a rare launch of a cable network in the gold rush days of streaming services”). According to The Hollywood Reporter, “The show is described as a ‘pitch-black’ comedic anthology. Insiders say the anthology component will be similar to FX’s Fargo and feature a new group of Heathers — no matter the setting” …

➢ Also new to tvnz.co.nz, from March 5, is a movie-length adaptation of David Walliams’ Grandpa’s Great Escape. About a youngster who helps his WW2 Spitfire pilot grandfather with Alzheimer’s disease escape from an old folks’ home, it stars Tim Courtenay, Jennifer Saunders and Walliams. The Daily Telegraph called it a “cosy, fun-filled tale” …

➢ An extra-long episode of My Kitchen Rules Australia will pre-empt The Big Bang Theory on February 28. Episode 13 of season 11 will now screen on March 7 …

➢ The Loggers, a 10-part series about a Rotorua family with logging in their blood, will air 7.30 Wednesdays on Prime from March 7. It will be teamed with the latest season of Fish of the Day (the first aired in SD on Choice). Also returning that week is Supersize Structures (TVNZ 1, 9.50 Wednesday) while ending their runs are The Cruise, Making New Zealand, Liar, The Great Australian Bake Off and Insert Name Here …

➢ Monday’s Fair Go (TVNZ 1, 7.30) investigates legalised ticket scalping and internet scams …