HD Heads-Up: January 11 – 17

➢➢ TVNZ 1 continues to lead the new season charge over summer with the addition of two new UK dramas to its schedule: Trust Me (9.30 Saturdays from January 11) and Deep Water (8.30 Mondays from January 13). Both series can be streamed OnDemand. TVNZ 1 also will use live coverage of the T20 Black Clash on January 17 as the lead-in to the premiere of The X Factor Celebrity …

➢➢ Trust Me is a sequel to the first season of the medical thriller featuring different characters. It stars Alfred Enoch as a young corporal recovering from a spinal injury in hospital when patients start to die unexpectedly around him. Is the threat real or imagined? The Independent thought it superior to the original (“genuinely intriguing and frightening“) while The Telegraph said: “Daft premise but the canny cast carry it through” …

➢➢ Deep Water has been dubbed the Lakes District’s answer to Big Little Lies because it follows three vastly different mothers “struggling to keep their heads above very deep water” amid sex, blackmail and murder. The Times called it “a twisty, soapy women’s drama not hugely troubled by plausibility” and The Guardian ” just the right side of soapy” …

➢➢ TVNZ 1 also will premiere The Celebrity Chase (7.30 Mondays) and Inside the Ritz Hotel (8.40 Tuesdays). The latter goes behind the closed doors of who works upstairs and down in the famous hotel. Said the Evening Standard: “The premise of the show — ‘With people spending less and ever more luxury hotels opening their doors, how does one of the most traditional hotels in the world stand out from the rest?’ — presents a potentially interesting question … [that] episode one doesn’t even attempt to answer” …

➢➢ TVNZ 2 will resume Shortland Street with an hour-long premiere on January 13. It promises for the soap’s 28th year “the return of some familiar faces, a wedding or two and an angry widow looking for vengeance!” …

➢➢ The Story of the Royals (Prime, 7.30 Tuesdays from January 14) is a dated two-part documentary exploring the mystique and history of the monarchy. The New York Times says it will also tackle “the American obsession with the royalty. This is a collaboration with People magazine and ABC — who together presented The Story of Diana. With interest in the royal family at a particularly intense pitch after the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the mini-series will cover the newly minted Duchess of Sussex extensively, featuring comments from her former theater professor, her makeup artist and the Suits creator, Aaron Korsh” …

➢➢  Prime will launch the 2019/20 NBL season with NBL: Sky Sport NZ Breakers vs Sydney Kings Live (7.30 January 17). And airing 6.30 weeknights from January 13 will be Sky Sport News …

➢➢  Paul Chowdhry Live: PC’s World (Duke, 9.30 January 16) was recorded as part of a UK tour that covered vicious weather, unimaginable pets, discrimination, family values and his trademark improvisations …

➢➢ More surprising than the lack of network movie premieres in the week starting January 11 is the number of primetime movies in SD, including Lethal Weapon, Cobra and Grumpy Old Men. TVNZ’s laziness in not relicensing these movies in HD is in stark contrast to Three rarely if ever broadcasting peak hour movies in SD. Ditto TVNZ continuing to re-run the first three seasons of The Big Bang Theory in SD when you can stream them in HD on Netflix …

➢➢ Here’s what is coming soon in HD:

• Hall Pass (TVNZ 2, 8.30 Saturday)
• The Lincoln Lawyer (Prime, 8.30 Saturday)
• Fear Dot Com (Duke, 9.25 Saturday)
• Sex and the City 2 (TVNZ 2, 12.35am Sunday)
• Sex Tape (TVNZ 2, 3.05am Sunday)
• Cinderella (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Sunday)
• Fast Five (Three, 8.30 Sunday)
• Step Brothers (Prime, 8.30 Sunday)
• A Serious Man (Maori TV, 8.30 Sunday)
• The Age of Adaline (TVNZ 2, 9.00 Sunday)
• A NIghtmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (TVNZ 2, 11.10 Sunday)
• Constantine (Prime, 8.30 Monday)
• Ride Along (Three, 8.35 Monday)
• What Happens in Vegas (TVNZ 2, 9.10 Monday)
• Live Free or Die Hard (TVNZ 2, 8.40 Tuesday)
• Hudson Hawk (Duke, 10.05 Tuesday)
• Paul (Three, 8.40 Wednesday)
• Boy (TVNZ 2, 8.40 Wednesday)
• Minority Report (Three, 8.30 Thursday)
• Pain & Gain (TVNZ 2, 8.35 Thursday)
• Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (Three, 7.00 Friday)
• Jack Reacher (TVNZ 2, 8.35 Friday)
• Coming to America (Duke, 8.30 Friday).