HD Heads-Up: October 10-16

➢➢ Sport and politics mix like never before this week on TVNZ 1 and Three. The former has the NPC Rugby quarter- and semi-finals as well as a 1News Multi Party Debate (7.00 Tuesday) while the latter has All Backs and Rugby League World Cup coverage, along with its Leaders’ Debate (7.00 Wednesday). The 90-minute Ryan Bridge-hosted special precedes an hour of analysis from Katie Bradford and a panel of experts …

➢➢ Three’s also launching The Celebrity Traitors: Uncloaked (9.00 Sunday and Monday), a behind-the-scenes stablemate in which the latest banished and murdered players discuss their time in the castle and their reactions to the Traitors’ identities. The same week it belatedly premieres true-crime docuseries Lost Women of Highway 20 (9.30 Tuesday) …

➢➢ New to TVNZ 1 are its own star-studded spin-off, The Celebrity Dog House Australia (7.00 Saturday), and the latest celebrity travelogue, Sue Perkins’ Big Adventure: Paris to Istanbul (8.35 Wednesday). It’s also burying late-night Rise and Fall of the Aztecs (11.25 Monday) and season three of Sky Med (12.40am Thursday). The former opens the four-part series Civilisations: Rise and Fall. Per The Guardian: “The mightily stressful and incredibly close-to-the-bone BBC show traces the demise of four ancient worlds – and its wildly prescient stuff. Will we never learn?” …

➢➢ More surprising is TVNZ 2’s late-night fast-tracking of high-profile drama Line of Fire (11.25 Thursday), which has just started streaming on TVNZ+. More to form are the primetime returns of The Big Fat Quiz of Telly (7.30 Wednesday), when Harry Hill, Judi Love, Tom Allen, Joanne McNally, Sam Campbell and Susan Wokoma try to figure out who shot Mr Burns and the Chasers’ nicknames, and First Dates Australia (7.30 Thursday) …

➢➢ Guesting on Friday’s The Graham Norton Show (TVNZ 2, 7.30) are Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård and John Malkovich, with music from Orville Peck …

➢➢ Sky Open is stripping crime drama reboot S.W.A.T. 10.30 Monday-Friday the week it premieres:

• BBC Bermuda crimebusters show Policing Paradise (7.30 Wednesday)
• self-help newcomer Lessons on Living With John Aiken (8.30 Wednesday)
• Britain’s Best Knitter contest Game of Wool (7.30 Thursday)
• new seasons of SOS: Extreme Rescues S2 (8.00 Wednesday) and Space Invaders S4 (7.30 Friday)
• The Teacher: Body in the Lake, which first aired on Eden and streamed on ThreeNow (8.30 Friday) …

➢➢ Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke (Duke, 8.30 Sunday) is a TVNZ+ docuseries about a vlogger whose seemingly happy family life on YouTube hid a dark reality that led to her arrest for child abuse. If it sounds familiar, TVNZ 1 last year aired the UK doco, Abused by Mum: The Ruby Franke Scandal …

➢➢ Ending their runs are:

• Tour De Fred Ireland: Part Deux
• The Amazing Race
• Betrayal
• Booze Patrol
• Catching a Killer
• Little Fires Everywhere
• Fatal Fall: Murder or Accident? 
• Good Bones
• The Million Pound Shaman Scam
• Taskmaster NZ  
• Mel Giedroyc: Unforgiveable  
• The Great Aussie Bake Off
• Giant Lobster Hunters  
• Babies …

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

• NPC Rugby: 2nd quarter-final (TVNZ 1, 2.30 Saturday)
• Rugby: All Blacks v Australia (Three, 9.00 Saturday)
• UFC Fight Night: Brendan Allen v Christian Leroy Duncan (Duke, 10am Sunday)
• Premier League: Chelsea v Bournemouth (Sky Open, 10am Sunday)
• NPC Rugby: 4th quarter final (TVNZ 1, 1.30 Sunday)
• NFL: Week 5 (Duke, 6am Monday)
• RLWC: Australia v Kiwis (Three, 10.00 Thursday)
• NPC Rugby: 1st semi-final (TVNZ 1, 7.00 Friday)
• RLWC: Australia v Samoa (Three, 1.00 Friday) …

➢➢ HD coming attractions include the network movie premiere of Air (TVNZ 2, 10.30 Saturday) and:

• Scooby-Doo (Three, 6.30 Saturday)
• The Karate Kid (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Saturday)
• Angels & Demons (Sky Open, 7.30 Saturday)
• Headspace (Whakaata Māori, 7.30 Saturday)
• The Matrix Revolutions (Whakaata Māori, 9.00 Saturday)
• Edge of Darkness (Sky Open, 10.10 Saturday)
• Circle of Friends (TVNZ 2, 12.40am Sunday)
• Over the Hedge (TVNZ 2, 3.20 Sunday)
• Moonlight (Whakaata Māori, 8.45 Sunday)
• Ghostbusters (Three, 9.30 Sunday)
• Saw 4 (TVNZ 2, 12.55am Monday)
• Big Daddy (TVNZ 2, 8.30 Monday)
• Plastic People (Whakaata Māori, 8.30 Monday)
• Rush (Duke, 9.40 Monday)
• Ambulance (Duke, 8.30 Tuesday)
• Long Way North (Whakaata Māori, 7.45 Friday)
• Hustlers (Whakaata Māori, 9.00 Friday).