HD Heads-Up: July 20 – 26

➢➢ TVNZ 2’s spin on Mock the Week and 7 Days, Have You Been Paying Attention?, will screen opposite the 7.30 Wednesday edition of Three’s The Block NZ: Firehouse from July 24. The Great Kiwi Bake Off’s Hayley Sproull will host a team of comedians, led by Urzila Carlson and Vaughan Smith, “turning headlines into punch lines and with nothing off-limits”. Because of the premiere’s fierce competition, TVNZ 2 will try to get the last laugh by repeating Attention 9.25 Thursday …

➢➢ Attention will launch the same week as TVNZ 1’s Funny As: The Story of New Zealand Comedy (8.30 Sundays), a five-part series about Kiwi comedy’s role in navigating cultural change (starting with the rise of women’s comedy, from stand-up to producing). There will be interviews with the usual suspects, including Ginette McDonald, Oscar Kightley and Rhys Darby …

➢➢ After taking a hit on premium 9.30 Sunday dramas over winter (Catch-22, MotherFatherSon), TVNZ 1 will resurrect the safer fare of lightweight documentary. Autopsy USA, which examines the shocking deaths of celebrities, will return on July 21 with a look at the last days of Patrick Swayze, who passed away in 2009 from cancer …

➢➢ The same night the network will pre-empt Sunday for One Hour That Changed the World, which follows the last 60 minutes before Neil Armstrong took that “one small step” to reveal “a whole new perspective on the moon landing that would change history”. If that’s not buzz-worthy enough for space junkies, Prime will premiere another Apollo 11 doco at 9.00, The Day We Walked on the Moon, following three hours of Sal’s NBL Live: Final …

➢➢ Maori TV will explore how we’re trashing that other deep space frontier, the oceans, in the premiere of the documentary, Blue (8.30 Monday). Said the Sydney Morning Herald: “Like most films of its kind, Blue is strong on facts and figures, and closes with information on where to look online to learn more. Does this kind of parade of horrors do any practical good, or is it merely a modern brand of exploitation cinema, letting us feel righteously indignant as well as thrillingly appalled?” Maori TV also will debut Aroha Noa (7.30 Sunday), a documentary about the 30-year history of the Johnsonville-based family and youth social service, Challenge 2000 …

➢➢ Other newcomers will include season eight of Hawaii Five-O (Three, 9.30 Wednesday), the return of Gordon Ramsay 24 Hours to Hell (TVNZ 2, 8.30 Thursday) and the premiere of World’s Wildest Holidays (Prime, 7.30 Wednesday) while ending their runs will be How Not to Get Cancer, The Channel and Kiwi Basketball Show …

➢➢ HD coming attractions for the week starting July 20 include the network movie premieres of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (TVNZ 2, 8.10 Sunday) and American Assassin (Three, 8.30 Thursday), along with:

• Tomorrowland (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Saturday)
• The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking (Maori TV, 7.00 Saturday)
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Three, 8.55 Saturday)
• Interstellar (TVNZ 2, 9.15 Saturday)
• Ghost Rider (Duke, 9.25 Saturday)
• One for the Money (Three, 11.00 Saturday)
• Bridesmaids (Three, 8.30 Sunday)
• The King’s Speech (Maori TV, 8.35 Sunday)
• Clown (TVNZ 2, 11.35 Sunday)
• Bad Boys 2 (Prime, 8.30 Monday)
• Tango & Cash (Duke, 8.30 Tuesday)
• Waiting (Duke, 8.30 Friday).