HD Heads-Up: March 29

➢ Three will be elated about the Roseanne revival’s huge US ratings. The reboot premieres 7.30 tonight in a bid to improve the network’s troubled comedy hour, pushing low-rating signature show Modern Family back to 8.00 (stablemate 9JKL has been pulled and will resurface Saturday afternoons). Deadline reports this week’s Roseanne’s season premiere was “huge” for ABC, with the double-episode drawing a “massive” 17.7 million viewers and predicting it will “lead to a quick season 2 renewal”. Unusually, ratings for the second episode were even higher than the first, with 18.6 million …

➢ The Hollywood Reporter says this makes Roseanne “the highest-rated regularly-scheduled scripted show of the last few seasons, since Empire at its peak, as well as the highest-rated sitcom broadcast in over three years. That’s an incredibly strong start for the sitcom, thus far only committed to nine episodes” …

➢ All of which bodes well for Roseanne’s chances here in a week that Three’s bound to win in its core 25-54 demographic, with the week-long send-off for top-rating Married at First Sight Australia, which ended last night, and the premiere of Stan. The latter rated an 8.6 with a 32.5% audience share in the 25-54 demo, winning the timeslot amongst 25-54s, as well as people aged 5+ and 18-49. The year’s highest-rating documentary helped Three to win its third consecutive week in the 25-54 race, as did MAFS, which last week averaged a 7.8 rating and a weekly average audience share of 29.8% in this key demo …

➢ Much has been made of star Roseanne Barr’s pro-Trump stance in the politically polarised US, with some reviewers unable to see beyond their own politics to judge Roseanne’s return on its own merits. “Roseanne’s comeback was inspired by the current political climate,” THR says. “But unlike Will & Grace, or any other scripted offering on U.S. TV at the moment, Roseanne presents a more varied take on Donald Trump’s America.” Barr told the New York Times it was her idea for her character to back Trump: “I just wanted to have that dialogue about families torn apart by the election and their political differences of opinion and how we handle it. I thought that this was an important thing to say at this time” …

➢ Movie spin-off Time After Time will screen late-night Sundays on TVNZ 2 from April 8. The short-lived series imagines what might have happened had HG Wells travelled to modern-day Manhattan in his time machine to try to catch Jack the Ripper. Reviews ranged from “winningly old-fashioned” (Entertainment Weekly) to “timeworn” (Newsday). “The premise should make room for bonkers fun, or at least attempts at bonkers fun,” Variety said. “But the studied shallowness of Time After Time’s approach to violence makes for a sickening dynamic that attempts to cheaply humanise a serial killer” …

➢ Also premiering in the week starting April 7 are All Star Family Feud: Sport vs. Music (Three, 7.30 Monday) and the Channel 5 documentary series Paddington Station 24/7 (Prime, 7.30 Thursday) while returning for new episodes is Antiques Roadshow (Prime, 6.00 Saturday) …

➢ Ending their runs that week are Australian Spartan, Will & Grace, 9-1-1 and Rolling Stone: Stories From the Edge …

➢ Three’s primetime experiment with Survivor is over. The latest season, Ghost Island, will air off-peak from April 7, when it will screen 5.00 Saturdays instead of 7.00 Saturdays. It was a worthy gambit given the show’s enduring popularity in the US and the appeal of Survivor NZ, which returns shortly to TVNZ 2. But weeks of being shipwrecked in the ratings have sunk US Survivor’s primetime prospects here for good …

➢ Three will screen the free-to-air premieres of Eddie the Eagle on April 7 (7.00) and Kung Fu Panda 3 on April 8 (7.00).  Its other HD highlights that week include The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (9.10 Saturday), One for the Money (8.50 Sunday) and The Adjustment Bureau (8.30 Thursday) …

➢ TVNZ 2’s rival HD coming attractions include Cinderella (7.00 Saturday), The Expendables (8.55 Saturday), GI Joe: Retaliation (8.30 Sunday), Iron Man 2 (8.30 Tuesday), Guardians of the Galaxy (7.30 Wednesday), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (8.30 Thursday), Crocodile Dundee II (7.30 Friday) and Lethal Weapon 4 (9.30 Friday) …