HD Heads-Up: July 5

Homer’s earlier odysseys in HD  … Monkeys go missing … Si & Gary Now That’s Not Funny! … Achy-Breaky Johnny Cash doco … Cinema Z enz …

Wahoo! The Simpsons is returning to Sunday nights on TV2. After pulling the latest season off-air two weeks prematurely, the network will test the appeal of much older episodes in primetime, starting with season 10’s Lard of the Dance. It’s a surprise move given this season would have aired on TV2 in the late 1990s. The point of difference is season 10’s since been remastered in HD, so the quality should be a step up from its last broadcast here (although the reformatting of the original 4:3 video to fill 16:9 displays will anger some) …

For a 6.30 Sunday slot, you would have expected TV2 to showcase some of the more recent episodes that MediaWorks aired from 2004-16. But while a weekly Simpsons classic may seem odd, chances are the show soon will screen six nights a week. The Middle, which has been re-running 6pm weeknights and 6.30 Sundays, will end on July 22, so don’t be surprised if The Simpsons succeeds it from July 25 …

TV3 is pulling Si & Gary’s Now That’s Funny! from its 7.30 Friday slot. The funniest home videos variation originally aired Sunday nights before being bumped to Fridays as a fill-in for Jono and Ben. Replacing it after this week are re-runs of Celebrity Family Feud …

Tonight’s scheduled episode of 12 Monkeys on The Zone is being pre-empted by a re-run of the movie, San Andreas Quake. The late-minute change is due to the sci-fi drama not airing in the US because of 4th of July programming. The Zone’s also replacing Knight Rider 2008, which was scheduled to screen 9.30 Saturdays from July 23, with the movies The Dyatlov Pass Incident and Extraterrestrial …

The Zone’s ending its Cinema Z season at the end of the month. Friday nights will be reserved for ancient mini-series that haven’t been remastered in HD: Gulliver’s Travels (August 5 and 12), Jason+The Argonauts (August 19 and 26) and Merlin (September 2 and 9). Cinema Z will be resurrected early next year …

Man in Black fans shouldn’t miss tonight’s Prime Rocks special, I Am Johnny Cash, says Dominion Post TV critic Jane Bowron. “The footage is wonderful – the black-and-white stills of Cash utterly beautiful, from the time he was a handsome and fleshed out country-and-western heartthrob in the 1950s, till his 100-tabs-of-speed-a-week habit that kept him touring and quickly turned his cheeks into sunken canyons. The late Merle Haggard, who clapped eyes on his old friend first in Folsom Prison, gives wise anecdotage, Eric Church’s restrained rendition of Man in Black leaves you weepy, and the documentary culminates with the ache of the video of the 71-year-old and very ravaged Cash’s death-evoking rendition of Nine Inch Nails’ Hurt” …

Monday’s 60 Minutes (Prime, 8.30) investigates skyrocketing house prices in Australia, profiles an American who hasn’t been compensated for enduring 30 years on Death Row for murders he didn’t commit, and visits a Catholic boys school in the US that’s mostly run by disadvantaged youth …

Appearing this week on Prime’s Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon re-runs are: Adam Sandler, Karlie Kloss and Anderson .Paak and the Free Nationals featuring T.I. (10.30 tonight); Maya Rudolph, Martin Short, Leslie Odom Jr. and Courtney Barnett (11.30 Wednesday); Zac Efron, Carmelo Anthony and One Republic (10,30 Thursday); and Dwayne Johnson, Jim Gaffigan and Phantogram (10.30 Friday) …