HD Heads-Up: February 9-15

TV2 becomes the last HD network to roll out its new-season slate, with a slew of hits returning mid-February, but the big premieres are on TV One.

As well as The Following on Monday, it will launch 24 hours earlier, either side of new episodes of Packed to the Rafters, MasterChef NZ (inexplicably not in HD) and another Australian dramedy, House Husbands.

The show was a hit for Channel Nine, which has commissioned a second series, and according to The Age, finds its feet quickly.

“The ensemble cast comprising familiar faces and relative newcomers has a terrific on-screen chemistry, in particular the older couples, Mark (Rhys Muldoon) and Abi (Natalie Saleeba), and Lewis (Gary Sweet) and Gemma (Julia Morris), whose dialogue – by turns affectionate, barbed, wry and funny – has the familiarity of people who have bonded over the real adventures of careers, child-rearing, domestic dramas and dishwashing duties …

“Admittedly, the set-up of the drama – four different men thrust together when they become primary carers for their children – sounded some cautionary notes.

“The stereotype of the bumbling, careless, inept dad didn’t augur well for a sophisticated and contemporary adult drama, while the exclusion of the ”wives’ (though one couple isn’t married and another is gay) could have removed the very richness of the premise.

“Thankfully, House Husbands hasn’t succumbed to either of those potential pitfalls, even if it skirts dangerously close to the former at times with silly subplots that mainly evolve around the lads’ misadventures.”

However, The Age reckons the latest season of Rafters “has moved so far from its original premise … it’s hard to imagine where this series can head now the Rafter house is well and truly not packed.”

Meanwhile, TV2 is packing its schedule from week seven with new seasons of Necessary Roughness (10.50 Monday), Revenge (8.30 Tuesday), Fringe (10.30 Tuesday), The Big Bang Theory (8.30 Wednesday), 2 Broke Girls (9.00 Wednesday), Once Upon a Time (8.30 Thursday) and The Vampire Diaries (10.30 Thursday).

Both Time and Revenge will be preceded by Saturday night recap specials (7.30/8.30) and on Sunday at 7.00 TV2 will repeat in HD the movie, Up!

TV2 also is launching a Monday Night at the Movies slot with the 2010 comedy in HD, Life As We Know It.

The same week TV3 will premiere season 13 of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation at 8.30 Saturday and later than night, at 11.30, Law & Order: Los Angeles, which lasted only one season.

On Sunday it will screen the network HD premiere of Love & Other Drugs while guesting on Friday’s Graham Norton Show will be Stephen Merchant and Minnie Driver.