HD Heads-Up: March 31

ONE of Showtime’s best series, House of Lies, will make its HD debut next month on TV3. House of Lies will air around 11.30 Wednesdays from April 13 — just three days after its season-five US debut. The first four seasons screened in SD on Four and you can stream the first three seasons in near-HD resolution on Lightbox. But this will be the first time the series has aired in full HD. Adapted from the book House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Tell You the Time, it’s won star Don Cheadle both an Emmy and a Golden Globe. No explanation from MediaWorks as to why its fast-tracking the latest season of a series it had written off on Four for a late-night run on TV3 …

❏ House of Lies premieres on Showtime the same night as a month ahead of season three of Penny Dreadful — but Sky’s SoHo won’t resume Sky’s SoHo channel will resume the Gothic horror from May 3. The delay continues a vexing trend by the premium drama channel, which A pity it isn’t doing the same with Bates Motel: it doesn’t start until April 19, six weeks after its A&E bow. SoHo is lessening the gap by screening a double-ep premiere but it’s still inexcusable that fans of the Psycho spin-off should have to lag so far behind the US when same-week-as-the-US should be the norm …

❏ TV3 will screen Jamie’s Sugar Rush in HD on April 11. “It’s easy to mock the chef, but once he’s fired up about something – like the terrible harm sugar is doing to the nation – he actually does something about it,” The Guardian said. But culture and politics website Spiked! thought otherwise: “Jamie’s Sugar Rush is absolutely in keeping with his previous campaigning shows. It offers up the worst examples of the problem, particularly when it comes to children, and promotes simplistic solutions.” The next night TV One will air the HD doco, The Boy Who Wants His Leg Cut Off, about an 11-year-old with a genetic condition called Type 1 Neurofibromatosis …

❏ Also of note in HD on TV3 in the week starting April 9: SVU star Mariska Hargitay directs the episode, Padre Sandunguero (9.30 Tuesday) … Season two of Territory Cops premieres (7.30 Wednesday) … Dame Helen Mirren, Kevin Costner, Ricky Gervais, Ewan McGregor and Eric Bana guest on The Graham Norton Show (8.30 Friday) …

TV3 will screen two network movie premieres in the week starting April 9: Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (8.45 Saturday) and Pain & Gain (8.30 Wednesday). Other HD coming attractions that week include Spider-Man 3 (TV2, 7.00 Saturday), Ice Age (TV3, 7.00 Saturday), Bad Company (TV2, 9.50 Saturday), Won’t Back Down (TV2, 12.10am Sunday), Love and Other Impossible Pursuits (TV2, 2.25am Sunday), Rush Hour 2 (TV2, 8.30 Sunday) and Restless Virgins (TV3, 10.30 Sunday).