HD Heads-Up: January 13

Welcome to a new spin on one of this site’s most popular features. As of today, HD Heads-Up becomes a daily digest of what’s happening in HD here and internationally. It will be updated during the day with programming alerts, occasional commentary and headlines with source links. 

TV3 is pre-empting Saturday’s 7.00 HD movie Legally Blonde with the 1986 David Bowie movie, Labyrinth, to mark the rock idol’s death — while fans may appreciate the gesture, not so good is the news it will air in SD (Legally Blonde will now screen January 23) …

Sky has just announced a year-long deal to screen all the Showtime Championship Boxing and Premier Boxing Champions events controlled by Los Angeles based Integrated Sports, including this weekend’s WBC Heavyweight World Championship fight between Deontay Wilder and Artur Szpilka …

Doug Coutts is about to make a welcome return to ScreenScribe.tv — watch for postings of his first reviews of the year, Cuffs and Doctor Foster …

Showtime has renewed Shameless for a seventh season (the fifth bows next week on Blu-ray) — the 12-episode renewal follows season six in the US delivering the series’ biggest premiere performance ever across platforms …

German spy series Deutschland 83 has become the highest rated foreign-language drama in U.K. TV history following its Channel 4 premiere (here it can be streamed on Lightbox) …

Ahead of the return of The Good Wife (TV3, 11.00 Tuesday) comes news that creators Robert and Michelle King are stepping down to focus on their new series, BrainDead — while their long-signalled exit isn’t expected to shorten Wife’s run, Deadline Hollywood reckons it’s harder for serialised dramas like Wife to continue without their creators at the helm …

CBS has officially axed Mike & Molly months after cast tweeted the news and just after the final season’s premiere in the US …

The next season of Episodes could be the last: “They are hard at work on the fifth season and we will wait to see if white smoke or black smoke comes out of the chimney to see how that will work,” Showtime programming president Gary Levine told reporters on the Television Critics Association tour …

In the meantime, Showtime’s greenlit the Jim Carrey-produced I’m Dying Up Here, a dark comedy about the ’70s stand-up circuit starring Oscar-winner Melissa Leo …

Showtime chiefs also told TCA reporters that season six of Homeland will be set in New York, that the Twin Peaks reboot will premiere in the first quarter of next year, and that the channel is pulling away from half-hour comedy, with newcomers like Roadies being expanded to hour-long eps …

Fargo duo Kristen Bell and Ted Danson are reuniting for Good Place, a new comedy from Parks and Recreation showrunner Mike Schur that will rule out Danson’s return to CSI: Cyber should CBS renew it for a third season …

Stuff has published a feature on if Netflix’s Making a Murderer has ramifications for NZ’s justice system …

If you’re impatient for the mid-season return of The Blacklist, TV3 at least is streaming the latest episodes on 3Now, albeit in SD, with a new instalment going live every Friday at 8pm (the same day as the US) — but it’s a poor substitute for same-week HD broadcasts …