HD Heads-Up: February 6 – 12

January 29, 2021 0 Comments

➢➢ Three’s peak-hour stripping of factual entertainment will continue in the second week of February, with the premieres of Holey Moley Australia, Kevin McCloud’s Rough Guide to the Future and season five of Rapid Response. Holey Moley Australia (7.30 Monday-Wednesday) is the ultimate crazy golf contest, in which top golfers contend with everything from fire-breathing dragons and shark-infested lagoons to towering windmills and a giant sausage. “Holey Moley is a very simple, family-fun programme (someone may need to explain the Uranus jokes … or not) that drags on for way too long,” TV Blckbox said. “It’s easy viewing, if a bit hit and miss. Seven sneaks a par with this one” …

➢➢ Kevin McCloud’s Rough Guide to the Future (9.00 Monday-Wednesday) has the Grand Designs presenter sending three comedians and broadcasters around the world to examine the tech that could solve key challenges. Critics weren’t convinced. The Guardian thought it a corporate guise to promote 5G as the cure-all while The Telegraph said “it all smacked of a bunch of junior TV researchers spending a couple of days on Google” …

➢➢ Rapid Response goes on the road with St John Ambulance officers and will screen post-Newshub Late from Tuesday …

➢➢ TVNZ 1 will add two new series to Thursday nights from February 11, with Filthy House SOS (7.30) and It’s Your Fault I’m Fat (8.30). The former teaches how to clean and de-clutter your home; the latter follows a group of British teenagers who have struggled with obesity since birth …

➢➢ The Jimmy Carr-hosted Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2020 (TVNZ 2, 8.30 Wednesday) earned a big fat thumbs down for not including any comediennes on its teams. “While there are two women on the panel, critics have accused the hit show of hiring them based on their beauty rather than their humour, as neither Maya Jama or Stacey Solomon are comedians, while all the men on the panel are full-time stand-ups,” the Daily Mail reported …

➢➢ Flying for Britain With David Jason (Duke, 8.30 Wednesday) marks the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. One critic dismissed it as “an array of heartfelt but familiar tributes, self-conscious slo-mo and flying demonstrations” …

➢➢ What happened when Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days in 1926? Agatha and the Truth of Murder (Prime, 8.30 Saturday) imagines she was approached by a woman requesting her help in solving a real-life murder. “The mystery has none of the intricate plotting that made Christie’s fiction popular, and the dialogue is clunky, clumsy and inauthentic,” Scotland’s The Herald said …

➢➢ On or near the red sofa on the February 11 broadcast of The Graham Norton Show (Three, 8.30) will be Carey Mulligan, Neil Patrick Harris, James Norton, Ian Wright, Camille Cottin and Celeste …

➢➢ Ending their runs that week will be Top Gear, The Apprentice UK, Paramedics, Salvation, Fear the Walking Dead and Rich House Poor House …

➢➢ There will be four network movie premieres in the week starting February 6: Ready Player One (TVNZ 2, 7.30 Sunday), Pork Pie (Prime, 8.30 Sunday), Happy as Lazzaro (Maori TV, 8.30 Sunday) and Westwood – Punk Icon Activist (Maori TV, 8.30 Monday). Other HD coming attractions will include: