HD Heads-Up: November 2 – 8
October 24, 2019 
11 Comments
➢➢ Wahoo! TVNZ 2 will refresh its primetime slate in the first week of November with the season 31 premiere of The Simpsons (6.30 Sunday) — as the lead-in to S2 of The Great Kiwi Bake Off — and another run of hour-long episodes of Shortland Street (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Mondays), ahead of the return of Australian Survivor (8.00). Australian Survivor also will air 7.30 Tuesdays as the lead-in to new episodes of Mom (9.15)…
➢➢ It’s surprising to see The Simpsons return to Sunday, given it’s struggled in later slots on that night and TVNZ 2 had more success with it 7.30 Fridays. The new episodes are being double-billed with 6.05 re-runs of S29 to create an hour-long block. At least the rescheduling means the show will now screen only a month behind the US, where its ratings soared last weekend when its latest Treehouse of Horror special became the highest-rated scripted show on Sunday night …
➢➢ TVNZ 2 will use the network movie premiere of Wonder Woman to help kick off its new-look schedule (8.35 Sunday). The same weekend Three will premiere Darkest Hour (8.55 Saturday) and Maori TV will celebrate the 40th anniversary of My Brilliant Career with its first HD NZ broadcast (8.30 Sunday) …
➢➢ Other HD coming attractions for the week starting November 2 will include:
- Never Been Kissed (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Saturday)
- Coconut the Little Dragon (Maori TV, 7.00 Saturday)
- Gone in Sixty Seconds (TVNZ 2, 9.00 Saturday)
- A Nightmare on Elm Steet (Duke, 9.35 Saturday)
- Broken Arrow (TVNZ 2 11.10 Saturday)
- Closed Circuit (Three, 11.20 Saturday)
- Getaway (TVNZ 2, 1.15am Sunday)
- Wanted (Three, 8.30 Sunday)
- Spiders (TVNZ 2, 12.15am Monday)
- Drive Angry (Prime, 9.30 Monday)
- Man on a Ledge (Duke, 8.30 Tuesday)
- Snow White and the Huntsman (Three, 7.30 Thursday)
- Revenge of the Nerds II (Duke, 8.30 Friday) …
➢➢ Straight Forward (TVNZ 1, 9.45 Sundays from November 3) is billed as “TVNZ’s furthest-reaching international co-production to date” because it was made with Danish and US partners. But its fringe primetime slot shows TVNZ 1 programmers clearly doubt the appeal of this thriller, about a fraudster who flees Danish criminals to live under an alias in Queenstown …
➢➢ The same night TVNZ 1 will launch An Ordinary Woman (11.50), a “ground-breaking Russian series” about a florist and mother who also runs a clandestine network of prostitutes. SBS, where it aired in Australia, proclaimed it as “an extraordinary blend of Breaking Bad and Happy Valley” …
➢➢ The same week TVNZ 1 will carry late-night coverage of the Tour of Southland and mark 50 years of network news in NZ …
➢➢ Prime Rocks returns for a new season in a new slot (8.30 Wednesdays from November 6) with I Used To Be Normal – A Boyband Fangirl Story. Filmed over four years, and spanning three generations, this intimate coming-of-age story follows a diverse group of women whose lives have been dramatically changed by their boyband obsessions …
➢➢ The Code (Prime, 9.30 Tuesdays from November 5) is a new drama series about the military’s brightest minds who tackle the toughest legal challenges facing the U.S. Marine Corps. US reviews ranged from “consistently diverting and sometimes educational” (Los Angeles Times) to “a thoroughly average procedural … like A Few Good Men without the charismatic stars and dialogue” (The Hollywood Reporter) …
➢➢ Modern Life is Goodish resurfaces the same week (Duke, 10.35 Thursday), as does 20/20 (TVNZ 1, 9.30 Tuesday), while ending their runs will be Mayday Air Disaster, Cruising With Jane McDonald, The Cult of the Family and The World’s Most Expensive Cruise Ship …
➢➢ New to Maori TV will be: Matangireia (7.00 Sundays from November 3), which explores the most challenging moments of six political careers, starting with Metiria Turei’s; and Putuparri and the Rainmakers (Maori TV, 8.30 November 4), a movie-length documentary about an indigenous man with a Western upbringing attempts to reconnect with his ancestral lands and traditional culture …
➢➢ Jason Momoa, Emilia Clarke, Regina King, Ross Noble and Camila Cabello will guest on the November 8 broadcast of The Graham Norton Show (Three, 9.00).
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October 24, 2019 at 9:34 am
The Simpsons is supposed to be on Disney+, are they allowed to do that? 🙂
I’m not sure if The Simpsons will be on the NZ Disney+ service. Even if it is, I can’t see Disney wanting to sacrifice the free-to-air (or pay-TV) revenue of TVNZ and Sky windows when its Kiwi subscriber base will be tiny. Moreover, with so many seasons, it can presumably parcel them out for multi-platform licensing.
Thanks, Philip, I was just wondering. I hope New Zealand gets a list with what is actually going to be on Disney+ in New Zealand, we will probably miss out on some things but we may gain in other ways 🙂
Am trying to nail that down, Trevor, but all the publicity’s being handled from Australia and often NZ’s an afterthought …
YAY, thanks for trying Philip 🙂
No trouble but I am a minnow when it comes to Disney+. Apparently their Aussie publicists have been overwhelmed with media queries. They’re not commenting on specifically NZ details until closer to the November 19 launch.
Oh well, sounds like we will soon find out with only just over 3 weeks to go. It’s amazing how fast time goes, it doesn’t seem that long ago when we first found out about Disney+ and now it’s nearly here 🙂
Hi Phil. Can you give us any updates as and when you hear them for BBC1’s new series His Dark Materials – it looks the kind of Sunday night viewing that’s good for TVNZ 1.
Sorry, Rosco, you’ll need a Sky or Neon sub to view it …
Thanks, Phil – Im guessing this is due to the HBO/Sky tie-in?
That’s right, Rosco, it’s a joint BBC-HBO commission that Sky’s acquired through its HBO deal.