HD Heads-Up: July 12

➢ Network movie premieres abound in the week starting July 21. TVNZ 2 and Three will go head-to-head in a titanic superhero franchise struggle with Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice vs X-Men: Apocalypse (8.30 Sunday). They will follow the free-to-air debuts of Three’s Ice Age: Collision Course (7.00 Saturday), TVNZ 1’s Truth (10.50 Saturday), Duke’s Viral (9.00 Saturday) and TVNZ 2’s Triple 9 (11.00 Saturday). Later in the week Three also will premiere Creed (8.30 Thursday). Other HD coming attractions will include Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Three, 10.40 Saturday), Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Duke, 7.00 Sunday), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Maori TV, 8.30 Sunday), Nurse (TVNZ 2, 12.55am Monday), Rocknrolla (Prime, 9.30 Monday), Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Duke, 8.30 Tuesday) and Arthur (Duke, 8.30 Friday) …

➢ TVNZ 2 will take the lid off Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours To Hell and Back to spice up its schedule in the week starting July 21. It will air 8.30 Mondays, 24 hours ahead of the network’s new drama double-bill, Wentworth and Killing Eve. Wednesday will see the reinstatement of season 10 re-runs of The Big Bang Theory, between Young Sheldon at 7.30 and Wellington Paranormal at 8.30. The same week it will premiere season two of The Cul De Sac (6.00 Saturdays) and season four of Empire (which will screen late-night Mondays and Tuesdays) …

➢ According to reality TV website, Reality Blurred, Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours To Hell and Back “is simply his old Fox series, Kitchen Nightmares, with a new name … It is changed only by the addition of a semi-tractor trailer with a kitchen that’s called Hell on Wheels, and with a compressed timeline illustrated by countdown clocks set up around the restaurant … 2004 Gordon Ramsay knew how to make compelling, even shocking television … 2018 Gordon Ramsay is merely another piece of stagecraft used to assemble television that thinks it’s shocking, but has instead become rote and predictable.” Nonetheless, the series was popular enough to be quickly renewed …

➢ Another TVNZ 2 newcomer, the hour-long dramedy Kevin (Probably) Saves the World, will screen 1pm Sundays from July 22. It stars Jason Ritter as a self-destructive Texan whose life is changed when he unexpectedly acquires a guardian angel. “We know this is sappy stuff, potentially, but it can be funny, too!” was The Los Angeles Times’ judgment but The Washington Post dubbed it “patronisingly low-grade inspirational junk”. ABC axed Kevin after one season …

➢ Killing Eve will face off against a new 9.25 Tuesday drama series on Three, Valor, about an elite unit of U.S. Army helicopter pilots involved in a top secret mission in Somalia that goes terribly awry. It was poorly reviewed in the US, where Variety quipped: “The drama does not contain the kind of energy, style or specificity that would make one want to check back in to see how the team’s mission is going.” The CW network decommissioned Valor after 13 episodes …

➢ TVNZ 1 also will refresh its line-up, adding a Wednesday broadcast of MasterChef Australia, bringing back Eat Well For Less (7.30 Tuesday) only weeks after its UK return, and premiering Children Who Kill (8.40 Tuesday), which journalist Susanna Reid claims was the “toughest challenge” of her career. “Its sensationalist title did this thoughtful film no favours,” The Telegraph said. “Juvenile justice is a contentious subject but this restrained documentary did a decent job of maintaining balance” …

➢ Prime will premiere the documentary, Joseph Parker: Metamorphosis (8.30 Wednesday), which follows his preparation for the Anthony Joshua bout, while ending their runs that week will be Britain’s Got Talent, The Sixties and Sunday Theatre, which will bow out with In Dark Places, a dramatisation of how Teina Pora was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit …