HD Heads-Up: November 16 – 22

➢➢ Prime will launch a new season of Louis Theroux documentaries with Surviving America’s Most Hated Family (9.45 Thursdays from November 21).Thirteen years since first encountering one of America’s most notorious hate groups, Theroux returns to Kansas to spend time with the Westboro Baptist church, a controversial Christian ministry that for years has picketed at military funerals and other high-profile events with deliberately provocative and homophobic placards …

➢➢ The Guardian dubbed it “a deeply uncomfortable watch” and thought it verged on exploitative, as did The Telegraph: “A rare misstep from this normally pin-sharp documentarian” …

➢➢ Prime Rocks: Whitney – Can I Be Me? (Prime, 8.30 Wednesday) is a 2017 Nick Broomfield documentary about Whitney Houston that uses never-before-seen footage and exclusive live recordings. Empire thought it “informative but incomplete” …

➢➢ Also new to Prime will be Portrait Artist of the Year (6.00 Saturdays from November 16) and Secrets of the Royal Servants (7.30 November 19). The latter is a one-off documentary, the former a Stephen Mangan-Joan Bakewell fronted  series that aims to uncover Britain’s next great portrait artist …

➢➢ Olivia Coleman, Helena Bonham Carter, Chadwick Boseman, Richard Ayoade and Niall Horan will guest on the November 22 broadcast of The Graham Norton Show (Three, 8.00) …

➢➢ TVNZ 2 will band-aid its ailing Wednesday line-up with the one-off special, Mums Gone Wild – Embarrassing Parents (9.00 November 20). It will explore Britain’s most bizarre parent-child relationships and push back God Friended Me to 10.05 …

➢➢ TVNZ 1 will screen a 90-minute episode of Coronation Street on November 21 at 9.05 while ending their runs that week will be How to Stay Married, High School and Taskmaster …

➢➢ TVNZ 1 and Duke will simulcast live coverage of the opening Formula E race overnight on November 22: Duke will go live from 8.45 Friday and TVNZ 1 from 12.30am Saturday …

➢➢ The week’s only network movie premiere will be Skull Island (TVNZ 2, 8.30 Sunday). Other HD coming attractions will include:

• Big Hero 6 (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Saturday)
• Penguins of Madagascar (Three, 7.00 Saturday)
• Sherlock Holmes (Three, 8.50 Saturday)
• Self/Less (TVNZ 2, 9.00 Saturday)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 (Duke, 9.40 Saturday)
• 47 Ronin (Three, 11.25 Saturday)
• Learning to Drive (Maori TV, 8.30)
• Pitch Perfect (Three, 8.35 Sunday)
• Cabin Fever: Patient Zero (TVNZ 2 11.55 Sunday)
• Cliffhanger (Prime, 9.35 Monday)
• The International (Duke, 8.30 Tuesday)
• Jarhead (Three, 8.30 Thursday)
• Hancock (TVNZ 2, 9.35 Friday).