HD Heads-Up: May 25 – 31

➢➢ Winter is coming, and so are new looks for Prime and TVNZ 2. The latter will overhaul its schedule with a local variation on a hit international format and the fast-tracking of a long-running prison drama while the former will beef up primetime with live rugby league and international cricket …

➢➢ Wife Swap NZ (TVNZ 2, 8.30 Thursdays from May 30) will follow 16 Kiwi families as they swap lives for one week. They range from single mums and gay champion dog-breeders to eco-evangelists, blended families and deeply religious households …

➢➢Westside’s David de Lautour will join season seven of Wentworth (TVNZ 2, 8.30 Wednesdays from May 29). It will screen here a day after its Foxtel broadcast and according to this well argued analysis, deserves to be the last season …

➢➢ As the curtain raiser to NRL Premiership Live: New Zealand Warriors vs Brisbane Broncos (Prime, 7.00 Saturday), Sky’s FTA channel will screen the documentary, Keeping The Faith – 25 Years With The Warriors. The NRL game will be teamed with live coverage of the 1st innings of the warm-up match between India and New Zealand from Bristol. The 1st innings of the NZ vs West Indies match will screen live from 9.20 Tuesday …

➢➢ Prime also will premiere Meghan & Harry: A Royal Baby Story (7.30 Sunday), Game of Thrones: The Last Watch (9.30 Monday) and Borderforce USA: The Bridges (9.30 Thursday), a 10-part Discovery/BBC Studios joint venture …

➢➢ Reverie (TVNZ 1, 11.00 Mondays) is a new gimmicky procedural, about a former hostage negotiator who tries to save people whose minds are lost in an advanced virtual-reality simulation. It ran for 10 episodes this time last year in the US, where mostly middling reviews ranged from “a dazzling …. Black Mirror-lite” (IndieWire) to “a Fantasy Island for the digital age” (TV Guide) …

➢➢ The same week a new Mrs Brown’s Boys special, Mammy’s Hotel (TVNZ 1, 8.30 Thursday), will be double-billed with a repeat of Mammy’s Gamble …

➢➢ Also returning will be QI (Prime, 8.40 Tuesday) and Taskmaster (Duke, 8.30 Thursdays) while ending their runs that week will be Les Miserables, Deception, Killing Eve, The Great British Bake Off, Bondi Rescue and Border Security …

➢➢ Maori TV will launch a unique series about Maori tattooists, Moko Aotearoa (8.30 Wednesdays) …

➢➢ Appearing on the May 31 broadcast of The Graham Norton Show (Three, 8.00) will be: Keanu Reeves, Kylie Minogue, Suranne Jones, Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell and Michael Rice …

➢➢ The week’s sole FTA movie premiere will be Maudie (Maori TV, 8.30 Sunday). Other HD coming attractions will include:

• Escape From Planet Earth (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Saturday)
• Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (Three, 7.00 Saturday)
• Akeelah and the Bee (Maori TV, 7.00 Saturday)
• The Hangover (TVNZ 2, 8.35 Saturday)
• The World’s End (Three, 9.45 Saturday)
• Ocean’s Eleven (TVNZ 2, 10.40 Saturday)
• About Time (Three, 11.50 Saturday)
• The Maze Runner (Three, 8.05 Sunday)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (TVNZ 2, 8.15 Sunday)
• Iron Man (Duke, 8.30 Tuesday)
• The Sentinel (Three, 8.30 Thursday)
• Good Luck Chuck (Duke, 8.30 Friday)
• Bad Girls (Maori TV, 8.30 Friday).