HD Heads-Up: March 14

➢ Good Friday highlights on the free-to-air networks will include two Peter Jackson blockbusters going head-to-head: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies on Three (7.30) and King Kong on Prime (8.00). Both will be pitted against against TVNZ 1’s SD repeat of Calendar Girls (7.00) and TVNZ 2’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (7.00) and, in SD, Lethal Weapon 2 (8.50). Duke will counter programme with the 1996 ‘toon Space Jam (7.30) and another Kiwi hit, What We Do in the Shadows (8.55), while Maori TV will premiere Honey (8.30). Earlier in the day, TVNZ 1 will re-run Austenland (10.45am) and You’ve Got Mail (1.10pm) and TVNZ 2 Rango (8.55am) and from 4.30pm a Wallace & Gromit marathon (A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave, A Matter of Loaf and Death). Three will follow The Hobbit with Mr Pip (9.30) and Stoker All is Lost (11.40) …

➢ Three will premiere Stan, a movie-length documentary about Kiwi musician and actor Stan Walker, in its Sunday movie slot on March 25 and TVNZ will launch a 7.30 Thursday movie slot with Transformers on March 29 that will overlap Three’s 8.30 movie, Immortals …

➢ Midsomer Murders returns for new episodes on March 25 (Prime, 8.30). In the first episode the detectives visit Little Auburn, a ghost village that has been abandoned since WWII, after a young man is found murdered during its grand reopening. This case originally aired in the UK in December 2016, which makes Prime a sleepier backwater for whodunits than Midsomer is for murders …

➢ Cultbox reports series 19 marks the exit of Nelson and the introduction of DS Jamie Winter (Nick Hendrix). “He makes a likeable enough debut, although I’d be lying if I said there’s anything here to really single him out from the crowd of loyal sidekicks.  A prior friendship with pathologist Kam (Manjinder Virk) is shoe-horned into the script, and it’s hard not to wonder if the change was simply an application of red pencil and tippex to an existing script, replacing ‘Nelson’ with ‘Winter’” …

➢ Prime’s nostalgia binge continues with the premiere of The Seventies on March 27 (8.35 Wednesdays). “Through the use of rarely seen archival footage as well as interviews with well-known journalists, historians, musicians, television artists and others, The Seventies paints a vivid portrait of a decade of lasting consequence,” promises the blurb …

➢ A new season of Prime’s Ross Kemp: Extreme World (9.30 Wednesdays from March 28) will be paired with the return of SAS: Who Dares Wins. The former opens with a look at the rise in far right vigilante groups in Mongolia; the latter throws five rookie recruits into the extreme and unforgiving terrain of the Atlas Mountains in Southern Morocco …

➢ Ending their runs in the week starting March 24 are Wilde Ride, Islands of the Gulf, Hell’s Kitchen Australia, Trauma, Hunted, Instant Hotel, Supersized Structures and Highway Patrol while resuming its 11.00 Tuesday beat is Major Crimes (from episode 14 of season five) …

➢ This weekend’s Sunday (TVNZ 1, 7.30) goes behind the scenes at rodeo’s biggest show of the year and meets the cowboys, the animals and those trying to save them …