HD Heads-Up: October 14-20

October 5, 2023 0 Comments

➢➢ TVNZ 1 is stripping medical thriller Malpractice 8.30 Sunday-Thursday. The widely-praised series stars Niamh Algar (Pure) as a veteran A&E doctor who’s investigated when she makes a life-and-death decision involving two patients — one with a gunshot wound, the other an opioid overdose victim — during a nightmare shift. Said The Times: “Malpractice was made by the company behind Line of Duty (promising) and Vigil (less promising). You can see the former’s fingerprints. They were all over the potent storytelling, tense workplace interrogations and game-changing rug-puller at the end” …

➢➢ Three hopes to rebuild Thursday nights post-7 Days with the return of The Graham Norton Show in the ultra-plum 7.30 slot. The chat show has had a haphazard run in the last couple of years, shifting nights and time slots. But programmers must think the latest season is one of the strongest to risk using it as an anchor. The new season opens with guests Kylie Minogue, Stephen Graham, David Mitchell, Mawaan Rizwan and Mae Muller singing her single Me, Myself & I …

➢➢ TVNZ 1, Three and Whakaata Māori are clearing their Saturday schedules for marathon election night coverage from 7.00. 1News Your Vote 23: Election Night and Newshub Decision 2023 Election Night are stacked heavily with the networks’ star power while Whakatau 2023’s focus is on the Māori electorates and key Māori candidates in general seats. Morning-after analysis starts 7am Sunday on TVNZ 1, 9.25am on Three and 11am on Whakaata Māori ….

➢➢ Sky Open continues to refresh Thursdays with the addition of another comedy, the season two premiere of Raised by Refugees (8.30), as the lead-in to Our Flag means Death and Crashing, and the free-to-air premiere of mediocre courtroom drama Bluff City Law (10.30), about father-and-daughter lawyers, which ran for just one season …

➢➢ Live coverage of game three in the Constellation Cup (Sky Open, 7.00 Friday) is being teamed with RWC On Island (9.05), in which Oscar Kightley quizzes Pasifika rugby stars about how Fiji, Samoa and Tonga are doing in the the 2023 World Cup …

➢➢ TVNZ+ series Sorry for Your Loss makes its late-night linear debut (TVNZ 2, 1am Saturday) on a double-bill with the 20-year-old US remake of Queer as Folk (TVNZ 2, midnight Friday). It stars Elizabeth Olsen as a recently-widowed advice columnist who quits and moves in with her mother, navigating the challenges of grief while questioning how well she really knew her husband. The 2018 Facebook Watch commission was favourably reviewed by the likes of RNZ (“one of the best TV shows about loss and grief”), Rolling Stone (“smart and affecting”), and Variety (“draws viewers in for its patience, tenderness, and refusal to gloss over the least flattering (and most fascinating) parts of grief”) …

➢➢ Also new are Young Masterchef UK (TVNZ 2, 4.25 Saturday) and the latest season of South Seas Spearo (Duke, 7.30 Sunday) while ending their runs are Fire Country, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, Eat Well For Less NZ, Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union, Bad Chefs, The Traitors UK and Interior Design Masters with Alan Carr …