HD Heads-Up: May 26
May 26, 2016 
6 Comments
Queen’s Birthday Weekend is shaping up to be a primetime blockbuster with not only Prime’s HD launch of the new-model Top Gear but also three network movie premieres on TV3: Mr. Peabody & Sherman (7.00 Saturday), X-Men: Days of Future Past (8.30 Sunday) and Ride Along (8.30 Monday). And mid-week TV3 will roll out for the first time the RoboCop reboot (8.30 Wednesday) …
Surprisingly, TV2 is largely betting on re-runs to win the long weekend, except for Snowpiercer (9.30 Saturday). Otherwise, it’s recruited Captain America: The First Avenger (7.00 Saturday), Men in Black 3 (8.45 Sunday), A Nightmare on Elm Street (10.50 Sunday), The Caller (12.50am Monday) and Iron Man 2 (8.45 Friday) …
Prime also has a network movie premiere that week, Chalet Girl (9.30 Friday), and will re-run Mel Gibson’s Edge of Darkness (9.35 Saturday) opposite TV3’s Invention of Lying (8.50 Saturday). TV2’s also kicking off a Wonderful World of Disney slot with Home on the Range (5.30 Saturday) and will repeat on Queen’s Birthday Monday Cars 2 (7.15am) and Enchanted (12.30) …
One reason why TV3 is going into movie overdrive is to promote upcoming shows, which range from the return of NCIS: Los Angeles on June 7, where it will air 8.30 Tuesdays (and looks like being teamed with new episodes of Hawaii Five-O from July), to fresh runs of The Blacklist and Westside (re-runs of which end on June 5). Also in the pipeline is a couple of new drama series …
Has the tide turned for H5O? Its renewed primetime prospects will surprise fans, who long ago thought TV3 had written it off to late-night (as it’s done with the soon-to-return Chicago PD). The network has persevered with it several times in peak hour and kept it afloat in late-night re-runs while shoring up a new primetime slot. If NCIS: LA is strong enough to anchor 8.30 Tuesdays, then it may be the perfect springboard for relaunching the exotic cop show, which has just ended its sixth season in the US and should appeal to the same audience as the NCIS franchise …
On Monday’s 60 Minutes (Prime, 8.30): the campaign of genocide against Iraq’s Yezidi people; how shark attack victim Mick Fanning helped his paralysed friend to surf again; and Boy George’s Culture Club reunion tour …
Comings and goings: Prime will pre-empt Wednesday night’s Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon to screen delayed coverage of the State of Origin game between the NSW Blues and QLD Maroons … Prime’s Limitless, which returns next Thursday, has been axed, according to showrunner Craig Sweeny … SoHo’s The Americans has been renewed for two more seasons, with the sixth destined to be the final (the fourth is currently airing) … A TV drama version of Get Shorty is in the works and due to screen as a weekly one-hour series next year …
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May 26, 2016 at 7:38 pm
Is H50 series 5 or 6? I’m halfway thru series 6.
If TV3 does resume H5O in primetime, it will be from S5. It played out S4 late-night on Saturdays and is midway through re-runs of it on Friday nights.
Hi Philip, any news on what day and time The Blacklist will be on? Will it finally move away from prime time?
Could it be H5O is again primetime because TV3 doesn’t have anything else to show?
At this stage season three looks like returning mid-June @ 9.30 Wednesdays. MediaWorks has already fast-tracked these episodes online at 3Now. And given there’s a spin-off on the way, I expect the fourth season, which is predicted to be darker in tone, will be in primetime, too. The show’s overnight ratings have slipped but that’s not surprising when it’s been shuffled around the schedule so often and I would think it’s still too valuable a signature property for TV3 to write-off late-night.
You could be forgiven for suspecting that thx1138 but the network is soon to leaven its onslaught of reality shows and movies with several new and returning dramas. Moreover, it should be able to make H50 work here given the enduring appeal appeal of the NCIS franchise and it’s a series that could run as long.