HD Heads-Up: July 4 – 10

➢➢ TVNZ 1 will screen in primetime a mismatched sleuths drama that the BBC commissioned for daytime viewing. The Mallorca Files will succeed the popular My Life is Murder on Friday nights from July 10. It stars Even Rhys as a prim British detective who teams with a scruffy German cop (Julian Looman) to solve crimes on a gorgeous Spanish island. It sounds dire but the Daily Mail recommended it as a “modern take on Moonlighting” while Radio Times likened it to a “blood-drenched” Death in Paradise that’s a “hidden gem” …

➢➢ Also new to TVNZ 1 that week will be Inside Taronga Zoo (7.30 Tuesdays from July 7). It follows the Sydney Harbour zoo’s 240 keepers and vets as they care for 5,000 animals. The Sydney Morning Herald dubbed it “cute and informative” …

➢➢ TVNZ 2 is burying a new drama series late-night. The Passage (11.30 Thursdays from July 9) is set in a secret government-funded medical facility that’s created a virus that could end all diseases but also wipe out mankind. The New York Times thought it a “better-than-average show of its type” while TV Guide said: “Is The Passage presented by Fox as good as it would be if it were on FX or HBO? No. But is it better than 95 percent of the other broadcast dramas that have hit the airwaves in the past 18 months? Yes, and just because it’s trying to be better than adequate” …

➢➢ Prime will screen the free-to-air premiere of the SoHo whodunit, The ABC Murders (8.30 Tuesdays from July 7). It’s an excellent twist on the Agatha Christie mystery, starring John Malkovich as a retired Hercule Poirot. Given TVNZ 1 has abandoned its 8.30 Sunday premium drama slot for Beat the Chasers, you would have thought The ABC Murders would have proved great counter-programming. Instead, Prime will offer more reality tosh with the July 5 premiere of Weather Gone Viral. The same week it will launch new episodes of The Force (7.30 Fridays) …

➢➢ From July 8, Three will use Emergency, an observational series about the emergency ward of The Royal Melbourne, as its new lead-in for Hawaii Five-O. It will launch opposite the Prime Rocks premiere, The Kinks – Echoes of a World, which analyses the secret of the enduring appeal of the band’s 1968 album, The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society …

➢➢ HD coming attractions for the week starting July 4 will include:

• Inside Out (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Saturday)
• A Knight’s Tale (Three, 7.00 Saturday)
• Along Came a Spider (Duke, 8.30 Saturday)
• Life As We Know It (TVNZ 2, 8.40 Saturday)
• Truth or Dare (Three, 9.35 Saturday)
• High Fidelity (TVNZ 2, 10.50 Saturday)
• Dangerous Liaisons (TVNZ 1, 11.45 Saturday)
• Gross Pointe Blank (TVNZ 2, 12.50am Sunday)
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (TVNZ 2, 8.35 Sunday)
• Inside Formula E – And We Go Green (Duke, 10.00 Sunday)
• Demonic (TVNZ 2, 11.25 Sunday)
• I.T. (Prime, 8.30 Monday)
• Torque (Duke, 8.30 Tuesday)
• Pompeii (TVNZ 2, 8.00 Thursday)
• Snow White and the Huntsman (Three, 7.30 Friday)
• Blades of Glory (Duke, 8.30 Friday).