HD Heads-Up: February 25

The Zone is promoting its HD season of The Prisoner from late afternoon to early evening. It will also screen a week earlier: 7.30 Sundays from March 4, possibly in recognition of the significance of this year being the cult show’s 50th anniversary. In another change since this post, The Zone has dropped Xena: Warrior Princess for an obscure series from 2001 called Mutant X, which it will air weekdays in SD. It’s also resurrecting the 2004-2009 version of Battlestar Galactica, which will air 2.50 weekdays from March 13, following the 9.30 Saturday broadcast of the two-part 2003 mini-series on March 4 and 11  …

HBO notched up big numbers this week for its premiere of Big Little Lies, which launches 8.30 Sunday on SoHo. Deadline Hollywood reports it drew 1.1 million linear viewers and a total of 2.1 million viewers, factoring replays and viewing on the HBO Go/Now platforms. “This was up 42% from the debut of HBO’s previous high-profile limited series, the acclaimed The Night Of” …

Prime’s third broadcast of Making NZ turned out to one of its biggest drawcards last week. Its first HD transmission drew more total viewers than the original SD premiere while its 25-54 viewership was comparable — and improved on its second play. It averaged 2.5% of 25-54s and 3.6% of 5+, which was more than TVNZ 2’s My Kitchen Rules (3.5%) and Three’s The Block (3.2%). Episode two airs 7.30 Sunday …

Sky has renewed its carriage deal with BBC Worldwide Australia & NZ for BBC UKTV, BBC Knowledge and BBC Worldwide. That’s the good news — the bad news is Sky’s no closer to making any of these channels HD, despite Sky boss John Fellet saying in a statement how “incredibly strongly” British storytelling resonates with Kiwis. So much so that BBC UKTV is the highest-rating entertainment channel on the Sky platform. Sky’s tardiness with upgrading the channel to HD is made even more inexcusable by the increasing number of NZ premieres on the service, including next month’s SS-GB and the upcoming Top of the Lake 2 …

It’s also not HD but Sky’s Jones! channel keeps going from strength to strength for TV western fans. Next month it brings back Maverick  to NZ screens for the first time in 50 years and the following month will dust off one of the best westerns of any era, Cimarron Strip, which will air 9.30 Tuesdays from April 4. Jones! will also downscale two HD premieres: the special, Porridge, in which Kevin Bishop plays the grandson of Ronnie Barker’s Fletch (April 9, 7.30); and series three of Still Open All Hours (7.30 Sundays from April 16) …

Guesting this week on Prime’s The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon are: Hugh Jackman, Mandy Moore and Chronixx (10.55 Monday); Aaron Paul, Keri Russell and 2 Chainz ft. Jhené Aiko & Ty Dolla $ign (11.10 Tuesday); and Michael Shannon, Alicia Keys and John Mellencamp  (11.30 Wednesday) …