HD Heads-Up: March 2

Rajan returns to the First Dates restaurant, hoping to be fourth time lucky with Corrine — but the encounter was dubbed one of “the seven most awkward moments” in the show’s history.

TVNZ 2 will take on Three’s top-rating 7 Days with the return of First Dates UK on March 17, from episode three of series two (above). Despite being five series behind Channel 4 in the UK, the show performed strongly on Monday nights and should improve on its predecessor, Balls of Steel, in the 9.00 Friday slot — where Three’s comedy panel favourite last week won in the four core demos: 18-39, 18-49, 25-54 and household shoppers with kids. It was 7 Days’ first outing in a longer weekly format in an earlier slot and helped Three to win the week in the 25-54 demo for the first time since the final of The Block NZ in August 2016 …

The same night the director and stars of T2: Trainspotting will dominate Three’s The Graham Norton Show at 8.00: Danny Boyle, Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle and Ewen Bremner …

TVNZ 2’s The Mick has been renewed for a second season. Variety reports the midseason comedy “quickly became a favourite of Fox execs, landing an additional episode-order early in its freshman season, which will tally up to 17 episodes. No word yet on the number of episodes for Season 2.” In Nielsen’s Live+Same Day ratings, The Mick is averaging 1.3 in the 18-49 demographic whereas the show’s overnight rating for TVNZ 2 in the same demo has been more than double that …

TVNZ 2’s The Big Bang Theory is twice as popular as The Mick and remains a top-rating staple in its 10th season. But its future may not be assured as some think, with Variety posting a fascinating backgrounder about two of its stars’ contractural demands delaying the show’s renewal for two more seasons. It’s essential reading for anyone interested in how the sums stack up for a show’s longevity in the US …

Why are we getting so fat? Cambridge geneticist Dr Giles Yeo finds out in TVNZ 1’s Horizon documentary of the same name (9.35 March 14). According to the Daily Mail, “He provided a feast of information that made us pay attention for a full hour — a rare achievement for any science documentary, let alone one that is trying to break us of bad habits” …

In the week starting March 11, Three will screen the network movie premieres of The Book of Life (7.00 Saturday) and The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (8.30 Sunday). Its other HD coming attractions for that week include: Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters (Three, 8.55 Saturday), Dinner for Schmucks (Three, 10.45 Saturday), Dead Rising: Watchtower (Three, 10.50 Sunday) and The Transporter (Three, 8.30 Thursday) …

TVNZ 2 also has two network movie premieres — Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (8.45 Sunday) and Disaster LA: Last Zombie Apocalypse Begins Here (11.30 Sunday) — and will re-run in HD: Clueless (7.00 Saturday), Sex & the City 2  (9.00 Saturday), Keeping the Faith (11.50 Saturday), The Oranges (1.40am Sunday) and White House Down (8.45 Tuesday) …

The same week Prime also has a free-to-air movie premiere, Snitch (8.35 Monday), and the next night in the Prime Rocks slot will launch the two-part miniseries, Molly, which dramatises how Molly Meldrum created the ’70s Aussie TV music hit Countdown. It aired last month in Australia, where The Guardian thought it “a surprisingly affecting tribute” and “a funny and warm appraisal of the era”. Prime will precede it with next week’s Prime Rocks documentary, Molly — The Real Thing …

Scheduled for Prime’s The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon are: Jennifer Lopez, Jeff Probst and Depeche Mode (11.30 tonight); Octavia Spencer, John Lithgow and Luke Bryan (11.30 Friday); and Samuel L Jackson, Dakota Fanning and Ed Sheeran (11.30 Monday) …