HD Heads-Up: January 14-20

➢➢ TVNZ 2 will light up its summer schedule with the triple-episode launch of Fire Country. It will open with a double-ep on Monday (8.30) and continue with a third ep on Tuesday. Reviews of the firefighting drama were lukewarm but the series was an early hit for CBS. About convicts who fight fires in California in the hope of reducing their sentences, The Hollywood Reporter quipped it “could use more spark” while the Sydney Morning Herald thought the drama “thoroughly conventional but the setting is interesting” …

➢➢ TVNZ 2 is double-billing Fire Country with Kiwi Jewish comedy Kid Sister (10.10 Monday), which has been streaming on TVNZ+ since May. “New York-based Kiwi Simone Nathan might be the creator and star of Kid Sister, but Amanda Billing and Peter Hayden steal the show as a South African-born ‘Jewish mother’ and an outrageous family patriarch respectively,” Stuff said while The Spinoff observed: “Kid Sister aims for greatness, and ends up somewhere pretty close … the kind of TV we should be making more of in New Zealand” …

➢➢ Another TVNZ+ series that belatedly will make its linear debut is No Return, which TVNZ 1 will strip late-night from Monday (10.25). It concerns a British family’s efforts to free their son from a Turkish jail. Radio Times predicted the four-part Danny (Safe, Brassic) Brockelhurst thriller “will keep parents up at night … well worth a watch“. But the Independent argued “a rather tacky bait-and-switch sets the tone for a thriller that has as much to say about the trials of package holidays as it does about the criminal justice system” …

➢➢ TVNZ 1 will overhaul Saturday nights using a new Mrs Brown’s Boys special, Mammy’s Creepy Christmas (8.05), to launch S11 of Call the Midwife (8.40) and S2 of The Capture (9.55) ahead of the overnight premiere of White Queen sequel The White Princess (2am) …

➢➢ Also starting new seasons will be Swamp People: Serpent Invasion (Duke, 8.25 Sunday), Hunted (TVNZ 2, 7.30 Monday) and Five Bedrooms (Prime, 8.30 Tuesday) while ending their runs will be McDonald and Dodds and Unsettled …

➢➢ The Elon Musk Show (Three, 9.30 Thursday) is a three-part BBC2 documentary series that The Guardian said “tries to get the measure of the poster boy for capitalism, with the help of loose-lipped former colleagues – and his mother”. The Telegraph said Musk is “a fascinating – and divisive – figure, but this show suffers from him not actually being in it” …

➢➢ Season 30 of The Graham Norton Show (Three, 8.25 Thursday) will resume with guests Jamie Dornan and James Norton …

➢➢ HD coming attractions for the week starting January 14 will include:

• Jem and the Holograms (TVNZ 2, 2.55 Saturday)
• Dora and the Lost City of Gold (Three, 7.00 Saturday)
• Watership Down (Whakaata Māori, 7.00 Saturday)
• Johnny English Reborn (TVNZ 2, 8.00 Saturday)
• Fifty Shades Darker (Eden, 8.30 Saturday)
• Manganinnie (Whakaata Māori, 8.30 Saturday)
• Safe (Three, 9.00 Saturday)
• The Island of Dr. Moreau  (Duke, 9.20 Saturday)
• Austin Powers 3 – In Goldmember (TVNZ 2, 9.45 Saturday)
• American Woman (Three, 10.55 Saturday)
• Risky Business (TVNZ 2, 11.30 Saturday)
• Devil’s Advocate (TVNZ 2, 1.10am Saturday)
• City of Ember (TVNZ 2, 12.10 Sunday)
• Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs  (TVNZ 2, 4.15 Sunday)
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Sunday)
• Zack Snyder’s Justice League (Three, 8.10 Sunday) 
• Billy Elliot (Eden, 8.30 Sunday)
• American Animals (Whakaata Māori, 8.30 Sunday)
• The Incredible Hulk (TVNZ 2, 9.35 Sunday)
• I Know What You Did Last Summer (TVNZ 2, 11.45 Sunday)
• Becoming Who I Was (Whakaata Māori, 8.30 Monday)
• 8 Mile (Duke, 8.30 Tuesday)
• The Hangover (TVNZ 2, 8.30 Wednesday)
• In Bruges (Whakaata Māori, 8.30 Wednesday)
• Ghost Rider (Three, 8.30 Friday)
• Ted (TVNZ 2, 9.30 Friday)