HD Heads-Up: March 11-17

March 2, 2023 0 Comments

➢➢ Fans of British crime dramas will relish a raft of premieres, including one that resurrects Eden’s Thursday drama slot (albeit at the later hour of 9.30). Maxine examines the investigation into school assistant Maxine Carr and her fiancé Ian Huntley, who was imprisoned for the killings of school girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. “By focusing on Maxine Carr, this drama skates perilously close to lumping her in with her murderous lover Ian Huntley,” The Guardian said of the 2022 three-part Channel 5 dramatisation. “Why isn’t it about the police failing to stop him instead?” The Telegraph thought there should have been more focus on the victims’ families but said it “works effectively” as a crime procedural …

➢➢ Murder in Provence (TVNZ 1, 8.35 Saturday) is a Britbox adaptation of the ML Longworth books starring Roger Allam (The Thick of It) and Nancy Carroll (The Crown) as an investigating judge and a criminal psychology professor who are partners in life and crime-solving under the Provençal sun. “The show poses as an old-fashioned detective series, but is really a shamelessly sybaritic wallow in the glorious scenery, architecture and luminous blue skies of the Midi (the action is based in Aix-en-Provence),” The Arts Desk said. “It was gorgeous to watch,” concurred The Times, “all those lovely French cameos a spa bath for screen-weary eyes, but, blimey, at times it was slow” …

➢➢ Magpie Murders (TVNZ 10.35 Saturday), which already can be streamed on TVNZ+, is another Britbox commission that will appeal to Midsomer Murders fans. Variety thought it an “amusing … quaint mystery-within-a-mystery … It’s the type of old-fashioned, Agatha Christie-inspired sleuthing popularised these days by projects like Knives Out and Only Murders in the Building“. Radio Times called it “a whodunnit with an ingenious concept: two stories in one. The first is set in the modern day and charts the death of novelist Alan Conway, and the second is Magpie Murders itself, the book that Alan was writing, which is set in the 1950s and centres on detective Atticus Pünd”. Conleth Hill (Vienna Blood) and Lesley Manville (Sherwood) star …

➢➢ TVNZ 1 bookends its Saturday night newcomers with the latest Jamie Oliver series, Jamie’s One Pan Wonders (8.05), which is billed as “the ultimate solutions-based guide to brilliantly easy meals” (a Christmas special aired last year), and the third and final season of duelling divorce lawyers/lovers, The Split (11.35) …

➢➢ New docuseries Mt Hutt Rescue (TVNZ 1, 8.30 Tuesday) was filmed with “unrestricted access” to the ski patrollers, medical teams and road response crew who keep holidaymakers safe from “all sorts of medical emergencies and mountain misadventures” …

➢➢ If anyone still gives a toss about Tinseltown, TVNZ 2 screens the 95th Annual Academy Awards live from 1.00 Monday, hot on the high heels of live Red Carpet coverage from 11.30am …

➢➢ The Curse of Oak Island (Duke, 5.05 Saturdays and Sundays) follows two brothers from Michigan who buy a Nova Scotia island with fabled buried treasure and a supposed curse that has claimed six lives so far …

➢➢ The first of two Graham Norton Show compilations (Three, 8.30 Thursday) features Taylor Swift, Daniel Craig, Eddie Redmayne, Lashana Lynch, Bono, Kate Hudson, Ian McKellen, Paul Mescal, Geena Davis, Stormzy, Lesley Manville, Colin Farrell and Bruce Springsteen …

➢➢ Returning for new seasons are America’s Got Talent (TVNZ 2, 1.45 Sunday), The Celebrity Chase (TVNZ 1, 7.30 Wednesday), Location Location Location (TVNZ 1, 8.35 Wednesday) and Haka Pedia (Whakaata Māori, 7.00 Friday) while ending their runs are The Amazing Race, Not Even, SIS, Rurangi: Rising Lights and Eyewitness …