HD Heads-Up: July 19

➢➢ TVNZ 2 is fine-tuning its Friday night line-up with the addition of ITV game show Japandemonium, which is described as “a review of the best of brilliantly bonkers Japanese TV”. It will replace season nine re-runs of The Big Bang Theory from July 27 as the network’s latest weapon to topple 7 Days from its top-rating perch. With lead-in Ellen’s Game of Games and lead-out Naked Attraction rating strongly, and Three’s staples proving vulnerable, this could be TVNZ 2’s best hope yet of reclaiming Friday’s light-ent crown …

➢➢ TVNZ 2 also is abruptly ditching 9.00 Wednesday sitcom The Mick for Life in Pieces from next week. The latter will resume from episode 21 of season one. At first glance you may think The Mick has been struggling. But it’s performed well as Mom’s successor and last week rated strongly off the back of Wellington Paranormal’s time slot-winning premiere in all the core commercial demographics. More likely, TVNZ 2 wants to use the broad appeal of the Kiwi comedy to boost sampling of Life in Pieces, a series which is soon to start its fourth season in the US, and turn it into a signature hit to refresh its ageing sitcom line-up …

➢➢ TVNZ 1 will make Sunday nights a four-and-a-half-hour block of NZ factual content from July 29, when it will team Q + A in its new 9.30 slot with 8.30 lead-in Cold Cases. The latter is billed as a “unique television crime-solving series will bring together a team of specialist detectives to re-examine some of New Zealand’s most chilling unsolved murders”. Rounding off the night that opens with Hyundai Country Calendar and Sunday will be The Inside Word, a 10.30 panel show that tackles challenging topics (it first streamed on-demand) …

➢➢ The latest season of Suits can be streamed on Lightbox from today. Said Deadline: “With Meghan Markle gone to a royal firm in real life and her character Rachel having departed the Aaron Korsh-created series with Patrick J. Adams’ hubby Mike for a new life in Seattle, Suits has nicely added [Katherine] Heigl and made a few changes – and it works. In fact, the result is that USA Network’s flagship series has had a deep dry cleaning that has given a few more years to the old boy” …

➢➢ One Pound Houses: Britain’s Cheapest Street (TVNZ 1, 8.30 Tuesdays from July 31) is a new documentary series that sounds like another property show format. “The story of intrepid homebuyers overcoming obstacles as they take on derelict Liverpool houses would make a great game show, were it not for the fact that it’s all real – right down to the burglars, gunfire and fear,” The Guardian said. “The show works because it has all those makeover game show elements – tantrums and tears, setbacks and pressures – that make good television. But it’s real, and so you actually care” …

➢➢ Returning for new seasons in the week starting July 28 will be Fear the Walking Dead (Prime, 10.30 Sundays), Blindspot (TVNZ 1, 10.55 Mondays), Poldark (Prime, 8.30 Tuesdays) and 20/20 (TVNZ 1, 9.45 Tuesdays) while ending their runs will be Survivor NZ, Loch Lomond and Madame Secretary. S1-3 of Poldark can be streamed on Neon …

➢➢ Scheduled this week and next on Prime’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert: Anderson Cooper, Andy Cohen, Dominic Cooper and a musical performance by Beck (11.00 Thursday); Denzel Washington, US Rep. Joe Kennedy III and a stand-up comedy performance by Carmen Lagala (10.30 Friday); and Janelle Monáe (11.50 Monday) …

➢➢ TVNZ 2 will precede its free-to-air premiere of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation on July 29 at 9.00 with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol 24 hours earlier. Other HD coming attractions that week will include a slew of modern classics and a couple of late-night FTA premieres:

• Into the Woods (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Saturday)
• Turbo (Three, 7.00 Saturday)
• Dracula Untold (Three, 10.35 Saturday)
• American Ultra (TVNZ 2, 11.40 Saturday)
• Amateur Night (TVNZ 2, 1.25am Sunday)
• Transformers: Age of Extinction (Three, 8.30 Sunday)
• No Country for Old Men (Maori TV, 8.30 Sunday)
• Clown (TVNZ 2, 1.10am Monday)
• The Mask (Duke, 7.30 Monday)
• Outbreak (Prime, 9.30 Monday)
• Gattaca (Duke, 8.30 Tuesday)
• Speed (Three, 8.30 Thursday)
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (Duke, 8.30 Friday).