HD Heads-Up: October 13

Rocky comeback … Grand strategy for Designs … Schmoozing with Cruise …

TV3 will warp-speed US TV’s latest show-stopping music special, The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do The Time Warp Again, on October 24, three days after its Fox TV broadcast. The reimagining of the 1975 movie stars Victoria Justice, Ryan McCartan and Adam Lambert. “In some ways, this new Rocky is a movie within a movie, with scenes of the film’s cult fans watching and responding with their now famous bits of audience participation,” USA Today reports. “The goal, director-choreographer Kenny Ortega said at the Television Critics Association press tour, was to offer a ‘celebration of the fandom'” …

How much more of Sheldon’s and Amy’s “experiment” will we see following last night’s groundbreaking Big Bang Theory episode, in which the two move in together? “It begins as a five-week experiment on the show, so at least for that long,” showrunner Steve Molaro tells The Hollywood Reporter. “But what’s great is it also functions as a creative experiment for us on the writing side … We are open to anything. That’s what’s fun about the experiment. They could stay together, they could try going back to the way it was, they could end up anywhere. It’s exciting” …

The story of Jean Batten will conclude TV1’s Sunday Theatre on October 23. In other comings and goings for that week:

• The Great Pottery Throw Down, The Holiday Airport, Spellbound, Lewis, Sugar Free Farm, The Millers, George Clarke’s Old House New Home and Renters will end their runs
• The latest season of The Bachelorette will premiere off-peak (TV2, 10.25am Saturday)
• Sports show The Red Stag Timber Hunters Club will return for a new late-night run (Prime, 11.10 Saturday)
• Season seven of The Walking Dead will premiere (TV2, 9.30 Monday)
• Channel 5 reality series Nightmare Tenants, Slums and Landlords will premiere (TV2, 9.30 Thursday) …

TV3 is replacing its 4.55 Saturday re-runs of Africa with same-week repeats of Grand Designs NZ, starting Saturday. Presumably the move is a belated bid to boost interest in the series, which has been rating much lower in its 8.30 Sunday slot, against Sunday Theatre and Lethal Weapon, than the first season and will soon face even tougher competition with TV1’s pending premiere of costume drama hit Victoria …

Prime also has revised its line-up for this Saturday, adding delayed coverage of the end-of-season rugby league test between the Kiwis and the Kangaroos. It will air just after midnight, following another trans-Tasman clash: Silver Ferns vs Australian Diamonds …

Tom Cruise will guest on October 28’s The Graham Norton Show (TV3, 8.30), along with Cobie Smulders, Jude Law, Catherine Tate and Kings of Leon. Cruise also can be seen in a re-run of Jack Reacher on October 23 (TV2, 8.30) …

Other coming attractions in HD that week will include: The Adventures of Tintin (TV2, 4.45 Saturday), Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (TV2, 7.00 Saturday), Hall Pass (TV2, 9.55 Saturday), Dumb and Dumber (TV2, midnight Saturday), Going The Distance (TV2, 2.05am Sunday), The Sessions (TV3, 10.25 Sunday), Final Destination 5 (TV2, 11.50 Sunday) and Lethal Weapon (Prime, 8.35 Thursday) …

Monday’s 60 Minutes (Prime, 8.30) will interview Kiwi Mary Quin, who was kidnapped by terrorists while on holiday in Yemen in 1998, follow a dying woman’s last days as she struggles to make voluntary euthanasia legal in Australia, and profile the last surviving Bee Gee, Barry Gibb, who as a 70-year-old grandfather is preparing to tour again …