HD Heads-Up: November 8-14

October 30, 2025 0 Comments

➢➢ Five drama series premiere in the second week of November, including season two of Malpractice, which TVNZ 1 is stripping 8.30 Sunday-Thursday. Season one focused on a nightmare shift on an A&E ward whereas S2 concerns the shocking consequences for a psychiatric registrar after he is torn between attending to two patients: one with postpartum psychosis, the other a pregnant crack addict. The Telegraph thought this “medical version of Line of Duty” less compelling than S1 whereas The Guardian described it as “addictive and unsettling“. Echoed The Times: “Being an old cynic, I doubted whether the writer Grace Ofori-Attah could strike gold a second time. Well, it seems that she might have” …

➢➢ The Hack (TVNZ 1, 9.30 Sunday) uses dual storylines to dramatise the biggest British newspaper scandal in modern times: how The Guardian uncovered phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s The News of the World, and the related police investigation into the murder of a private detective. The Telegraph labelled it “The Guardian: The Movie, and it’s cringeworthy” while even The Guardian acknowledged it was “very boring — especially when played out across a very indulgent seven-hour run”. But the London Evening Standard argued: “Rarely does a TV show make you feel simultaneously proud and ashamed of your profession.” David Tennant, Robert Carlyle and Toby Jones star (view the trailer here) …

➢➢ Time magazine dubbed Obituary (TVNZ 1, 11.30 Saturday) a “Dexter meets Bad Sisters” that “mixes elements of crime drama and dark comedy” about a morbid, depressive young Irish writer who pens newspaper obituaries. When the paper looks to cut costs, and her job because there are scarcely any deaths to cover in the village, “she starts killing the worst people she can find”. Decider thought the TVNZ+ series “entertaining for a show that’s so dark. But you absolutely need to be in the right mood to sit down and watch it”…

➢➢ Also graduating from streaming are ThreeNow’s Playing Gracie Darling (Three, 9.50 Sunday) and The Assassin (Three, 9.35 Monday). The former is an Aussie supernatural series and the latter an intricate six-part thriller from brothers Jack and Harry Williams (The Tourist, The Missing). It stars Keeley Hawes as a retired assassin who teams with her estranged son (The Good Doctor’s Freddie Highmore) to uncover a dark conspiracy that’s not their only threat. Most British critics forgave its implausibility while The Age summed it up thus: “It strives to marry comedy, action and drama, and gets the balance right some of the time, but not always” …

➢➢ Property newcomer Can’t Sell, Must Sell (TVNZ 1, 7.30 Thursday) teams brother-and-sister developers Stuart and Scarlette Douglasis as the saviours of desperate vendors whose unsellable homes need radically overhauling …

➢➢ Appearing on Friday’s Graham Norton Show (TVNZ 2, 7.30) are Running Man stars Glen Powell and Colman Domingo, Rosamund Pike, Jack Whitehall and Ed Sheeran, who performs Camera from his new studio album Play …

➢➢ Returning for new seasons are Rich House, Poor House (TVNZ 1, 7.30 Thursday) and Interior Design Masters With Alan Carr (TVNZ 1, 9.25 Friday) while ending their runs are:

Gladiators UK
Dream Car Fixers
George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces
Michael McIntyre’s Big Show …

➢➢ Live/delayed free-to-air sport includes:

Football: Women A-League — Wellington Phoenix v Canberra United (Sky Open, 3.30 Saturday)
Premiere League: Goal Rush — Spurs v Manchester United (Sky Open, 10am Sunday)
QNS: Scotland v All Blacks (Sky Open, midday Sunday)
T20 Cricket: BlackCaps v West Indies (TVNZ 1, 1pm Sunday, Monday & Thursday)
Rugby League: Pacific Championships (Sky Open, 5.30 & 8.30 Sunday)
NFL (Duke, 3.30am & 7am Monday)
Netball: Scotland v Silver Ferns — 1st Test (Sky Open, midday Monday) …

➢➢ HD coming attractions include: