HD Heads-Up: March 2

Kiwi Cliff Curtis resurfaces next month on SoHo in season two of Fear the Walking Dead.

❏ Fear the Walking Dead, the first season of which goes on sale today on Blu-ray, will return for its second season on SoHo next month. It will air 9.30 Mondays from April 11 and will be available to stream on Neon the same night. Sky’s also confirmed Bates Motel, which resumes this week in the US, will start its fourth season next month on SoHo. But SoHo’s Mad Dogs won’t be back — Amazon, which commissioned the US remake of the British series, has passed on a second season …

❏ TV2 will screen a NZ version of popular UK game show You’re Back in the Room. A broadcast date has still to be disclosed but applications are open (tvnz.co.nz/backintheroom) if you want to team with three other contestants to “complete physical and logical challenges” for a cash prize. Screentime NZ is making the series for TV2, which will also air the ITV original that Philip Schofield and hypnotist Keith Barry have fronted since 2015. Australia, French and Colombian versions also are in the works …

❏ TVNZ’s acquisitions and commissioning chief Andrew Shaw calls YBITR “laugh out oud funny”. But The Daily Mirror likened “this abomination” to a “Little Britain sketch gone feral” while The Daily Mail reported therapist claims it could be “exploiting ‘vulnerable’ people”. The Guardian was in two minds about it (“quite funny. For a while”) but The Daily Telegraph thought it “significantly funnier than anything else on TV” …

❏ TV3 is pre-empting its Saturday night movie, The Cyberbully, to re-run the season premiere of The Night Manager at 9.30 to try to broaden its sampling before Sunday’s second episode. Amazingly, three days after the premiere none of our major newspapers has yet to publish a review …

❏ TV3 crime staple NCIS has been renewed for two more seasons on the eve of original cast member Michael Weatherly exiting. Despite having been on air for 13 seasons, “the drama is averaging 20.47 million viewers [in the US], up 4 percent from a year ago and on pace to finish the season as network television’s number one drama for the seventh consecutive year.” Meanwhile, another TV3 drama, the low-rating Satisfaction, has been axed …