HD Heads-Up: January 19 – 25

➢➢ TVNZ 1 will beef up its new season slate with the premieres of Dynasties (7.00 Sundays from January 20) and The Split (8.30 Fridays from January 25), and live coverage of the T20 clash between Kiwi cricketers and rugby players (from 4.30 January 25). Dynasties is the latest Sir David Attenborough blockbuster (the Independent thought it “as enjoyable as anything he has done“) and should be released on Blu-ray and 4K-UHD soon after its broadcast while The Split has been streaming for months on TVNZ OnDemand. About a family of divorce lawyers, it earned mixed reviews, including this early verdict from The Times: “The Split is sassy all right and its themes are rich for exploration, but its mix of sharpness and heart could turn out to be a strength or a weakness” …

➢➢ Slow TV comes to Prime on January 19, when it will premiere two versions of the same programme: Go South. It curates 40 hours of an epic train journey from Auckland to the deep south into a three-hour special, which will air at 9.30, and an extended 12-hour cut that will air from 1.30am on January 20. “With no score, no narration, an intentionally immersive soundscape, and beauty shots held far longer than expected, the experience is a signature piece of television, and a New Zealand first,” the network claims …

➢➢ The same night Prime will launch WhichCar (7.00 Saturdays) and season 20 of Midsomer Murders (7.30 Saturdays). The latter will introduce Annette Badland as Fleur Perkins, an imposing and dry humoured new pathologist; the former explores car culture via Australia’s biggest multi-platform new car website, WhichCar.com.au …

➢➢ Also new will be 1968: The Year That Changed America (Prime, 8.30 Tuesdays), a four-part documentary series that combines archival material with contemporaneous interviews about the landmark year. “Arguably, CNN’s new docuseries, executive produced by Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Mark Herzog, should be called 1968: The Year That Didn’t Change America Nearly Enough,” Paste magazine said. “But it’s a very engaging and panoramic (and frequently very, very sad) look at what happened that year. A lot happened. A lot” …

➢➢ Seven Sharp and The Project will return on January 21 while ending their runs the preceding weekend will be The X Factor UK and Mediterranean with Simon Reeve …

➢➢ TVNZ 2 will premiere two movies in the week starting January 19: Keanu (11.10 Saturday) and Storks (7.00 Sunday). Other HD coming attractions will include:

• Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (Three, 7.00 Saturday)
• Saving Mr. Banks (TVNZ 1, 8.30 Saturday)
• The Equalizer (TVNZ 2, 8.30 Saturday)
• Deep Blue Sea (Three, 9.05 Saturday)
• The Pyramid (Three, 11.15 Saturday)
• Babysitter’s Black Book (TVNZ 2, 1am Sunday)
• The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (TVNZ 2, 8.30 Sunday)
• The Bourne Ultimatum (Three, 9.20 Sunday)
• Big Sky (TVNZ 2, 11.35 Sunday)
• Spider-Man 3 (Prime, 7.30 Monday)
• Gravity (TVNZ 2, 8.50 Monday)
• Mud (Duke, 8.30 Tuesday)
• Crazy, Stupid, Love (TVNZ 2, 8.50 Tuesday)
• The Dukes of Hazzard (TVNZ 2, 8.30 Wednesday)
• A Million Ways to Die in the West (Three, 8.40 Wednesday)
• Spectre (Three, 7.30 Thursday)
• Edge of Tomorrow (TVNZ 2, 8.30 Thursday)
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (TVNZ 2, 7.30 Friday)
• The Huntsman: Winter’s War (Three, 8.00 Friday)
• Man of the House (Duke, 8.30 Friday).