HD Heads-Up: November 11

Cohen resurrected … Durrells to double up … Earth II still up in the air … 

Prime will pre-empt Wednesday’s The Durrells and QI to repeat Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man, following the 82-year-old musician’s death. The good news for Durrells fans is the following week Prime will air a double-episode. Kudos to Prime for being nimble enough in its programming to respond to such an event, although it’s scarcely taking a ratings risk given how poorly The Durrells has performed. I don’t have the ratings for this week’s episode but last week’s averaged only 1.1% of Prime’s 25-54 demographic, which was even fewer than Bravo’s The Real Housewives of OC and Choice’s Cold Water Cowboys …

Empire dubbed the Cohen rockumentary a “hit and miss tribute to the great melancholist” but Urban Cinefile reckons “fans of his poetry-like songs whose lyrics conjure imagery of his thoughts and experiences, will revel in this emotion and music-filled tribute.” Time Out thought the 2006 production “highly welcome, even if it’s at best a partial view. That’s partly due to its patchwork construction, which intercuts musical numbers (and gushing accolades) from an all-star tribute show in Sydney with Cohen’s own pithy recollections, before the old boy wheezes through a climactic number with a reverent U2″  …

Amazingly, NZ broadcasters have yet to strike a deal for Planet Earth II, the BBC premiere of which this week earned outstanding reviews in the UK. TV3 has confirmed it won’t be screening the 4K production, so it look as though it will wind up on TVNZ or Prime, depending on who wants it most. Prime has expressed interest but TVNZ will have the bigger bucks if it opts to use it as a TVNZ 1 flagship for the network’s new season early next year …

TV3’s also confirmed it won’t be screening any of the series I speculated might be on its 2017 schedule: Chicago Justice, Midnight, Texas, Shots Fired, Pitch, The Good Place, Great News, Pure, Genius, Speechless, Making History and Son of Zorn. So it will be interesting to see which, if any, may wind up on Netflix (or Lightbox), as happened with Designated Survivor and Frequency …

Some may surface on Sky’s The Box. Although it’s an SD channel, credit to the programmers for going day-and-date with WWE Raw and WWE Smackdown. Both will screen the same time as in the US from December 6, when the former will air 2pm Tuesdays and the latter, 2pm Wednesdays. “We’re thrilled to be able to broadcast WWE Raw and WWE SmackDown live for Kiwi viewers,” The Box channel manager Luke Henderson says. “It’s a first for us and the unprecedented access to these two long-running shows on The Box will make it a lot easier for WWE super fans to avoid unwelcome spoilers!” …