HD Heads-Up: January 11-17

➢➢ If you’re nostalgic for traditional costume dramas, The Hardacres (TVNZ 1, 8.30 Tuesday) could be your summertime guilty pleasure. From Channel 5, the home of All Creatures Great and Small, the series is based on a best-selling saga about a working-class family as they move from a grimy fish dock to a vast country estate in 1890s Yorkshire. “We’re not here for gritty realism,” The Telegraph said. “Enjoy it as an old-fashioned taste of how TV used to be” …

➢➢ The Times said it won’t win awards for subtlety. “The poor folk are pure noble souls and the rich boss is a heartless one-dimensional sex predator with mutton-chop whiskers. It could almost be a Disney story, so black-and-white are the characters, a sort of Cinderella at the fish docks. But there is also an old-fashioned simplicity to this rags-to-riches tale” …

➢➢ The belated linear debut of Better (TVNZ 1, 11.40 Saturday) is good news for fans of acclaimed bent copper thrillers. Reads the burb: “Detective Inspector Louise ‘Lou’ Slack has a deep, dark secret. Although she appears to be an upstanding citizen and cop, for the last 20 years she has been in the pocket of powerful crime boss Col McHugh. When her son almost dies, Lou undergoes a moral awakening. What started as minor favours and cover ups has spiralled out of control and she decides to atone for her crimes and ultimately take Col down.” Leila Farzad (I Hate Suzie) and Andrew Buchan (Broadchurch) star in what The Guardian dubbed a “dodgy detective” drama that “really starts to blossom as it goes on” …

➢➢ Also new to TVNZ 1 are the free-to-air premiere of Gothic horror hit Penny Dreadful (1.35am Sunday) and Building Superhomes Monaco (8.35 Thursday), in which luxury property developer Guy Phoenix risks everything on transforming a £16million Monaco apartment into an opulent “superhome”. Quipped one UK critic: “Charmless and gaudy – and that’s just the property developer” …

➢➢ TVNZ 2 is double-billing Taskmaster’s New Year Treat 2025 (8.20 Wednesday) with a re-run of last year’s special (9.20). Celebrity contestants include David James, Hannah Fry, Martin Lewis, Melanie Blatt, and Sue Johnston …

➢➢ Also new to TVNZ 2 are dating show The Love Triangle (10.00 Saturday) and Dead Hot (11.55 Monday), a “comedy-murder-mystery-horror-Gen-Z-drama that shouldn’t work,” The Telegraph said. “Brutal murder is hard to combine with humour, and it’s all too easy to lose interest in a mystery that lacks stakes … It is what I believe is called something of a hot mess. But at least it’s hot” …

➢➢ The Guardian dubbed it “Skins meets Queer as Folk … but way weirder. Charlotte Coben’s zany thriller about a missing man who left a severed finger behind has plenty of whiplash-inducing twists. She’s clearly cut from the same cloth as her dad Harlan” …

➢➢ Appearing on The Graham Norton Show (Three, 7.00 Thursday) are Timothée Chalamet, Colman Domingo, Andrew Garfield, James Corden and Ruth Jones …

➢➢ Stone Cold Takes on America (Duke, 8.45 Sunday) has WWE superstar Steve Austin criss-crossing the US to join ordinary Americans in “wild, adrenaline-fuelled activities” while for live/delayed FTA sport, check out this post …

➢➢ Returning are Ambulance S13 (Sky Open, 8.00 Tuesday) and Rich House, Poor House S10 (TVNZ 1, 7.30 Thursday) while ending their runs are:

• Getting Away With Murder(s)
• Ludwig
• The Responder
• Florida Man Murders
• Traffic Cops 
• The World’s Most Expensive Cruise
• Booze Patrol
• The Day of the Jackal …

➢➢ HD coming attractions include:

• Daddy Day Care (TVNZ 2, 12.25 Saturday)
• Bernie the Dolphin (Whakaata Māori, 7.00 Saturday)
• The Goonies (Three, 7.25 Saturday)
• Downton Abbey: A New Era (TVNZ 1, 7.40 Saturday)
• Ride Along 2 (TVNZ 2, 8.00 Saturday)
• From the Vine (Whakaata Māori, 8.30 Saturday)
• Rush (Three, 9.45 Saturday)
• The Karate Kid 2 (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Sunday)
• The Public (Eden, 8.30 Sunday)
• Mothering Sunday (Whakaata Māori, 8.40 Sunday)
• The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (TVNZ 2, 8.10 Monday)
• The Painter and the Thief (Whakaata Māori, 8.30 Monday)
• Batman Begins (Three, 8.35 Monday)
• Jackass: The Movie (Duke, 9.45 Monday)
• Fast & Furious (TVNZ 2, 8.00 Tuesday)
• Clash of the Titans (Three, 8.05 Tuesday)
• The Firm (Duke, 8.40 Tuesday)
• Yuli (Whakaata Māori, 8.30 Wednesday)
• The Bourne Supremacy (TVNZ 2, 8.25 Thursday)
• The Promotion (Three, 8.35 Thursday)
• The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (TVNZ 2, 7.30 Friday)
• Wild Wild West (Three, 8.00 Friday).