HD Heads-Up: November 30

➢ Downton Abbey’s Joanne Froggat plays Britain’s first serial killer, Mary Ann Cotton, in the Victorian drama, Dark Angel, which premieres on December 10 (Prime, 8.30). Another Downton vet, Brian Percival, directs this “quite gripping” two-part account of how Cotton is believed to have killed up to 21 people in the 1860s and ‘70s …

➢ “The script, adapted by Gwyneth Hughes from a book by David Wilson, has a job keeping up with her,” said The Daily Telegraph. ”It shuttles as if on amphetamines between altar and graveyard somewhere in the North-East. Match, hatch, dispatch. Repeat after the commercial break. Two years would slip by with a snip of the scissors in the edit suite” …

➢ Said The Guardian of World’s Most Expensive Toys, which TVNZ 1 will premiere on December 14: “Watch before your Christmas shop.” But The Daily Telegraph quipped it was “more ho-hum than ho-ho-ho” …

➢ Returning in the week starting December 9 is Beach Cops (Three, 9.40 Tuesday), with season two being double-billed with repeats of season one, while ending their runs are:

• The Great British Bake Off
• Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders
• Blue Bloods 
• Outback Truckers
• The Big Bang Theory
• 20/20
• HOMEmade
• Secret Life of Pets
• Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History
• The Odd Couple
• Police Ten 7
• The Crowd Goes Wild
• 7 Days
• Rizzoli & Isles …

➢ Three will launch a Wednesday night movie slot with the free-to-air premiere of Bridge of Spies on December 13. Also premiering that week are Norm of the North (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Saturday) and The Night Before (TVNZ 2, 8.30 Sunday). Other HD coming attractions include:

• The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Three, 7.00 Saturday)
• What To Expect When You’re Expecting (TVNZ 2, 8.45 Saturday)
• Revenge of the Nerds (Three, 9.15 Saturday)
• The Ex (TVNZ 2, 10.50 Saturday)
• I Origins (Three, 11.10 Saturday)
• A Country Christmas Story (TVNZ 2, 5.20 Sunday)
• Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (Three, 8.30 Sunday)
• The Grand Budapest Hotel (Three, 10.25 Sunday)
• Inside Man (Three, 8.30 Thursday)
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (TV2, 7.00 Friday).