HD Heads-Up: October 28-November 3

➢➢ After the Party (TVNZ 1, 8.30 Sunday) is a “gritty” Wellington-based drama about a woman (Robyn Malcolm) who accuses her husband (Peter Mullan) of a sex crime against her daughter’s teenage friend — only for no one to believe her. Five years later, when he returns from Scotland and moves in with her daughter, she is determined to prove his guilt. Malcolm co-scripted the six-part series with Dianne Taylor and previously starred with Mullan in Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake …

➢➢ TVNZ 1 is double-billing After the Party with season two of UK WWII drama World on Fire. If you didn’t see S1, it soon will be available as a box set to stream on TVNZ+. The series first aired here four years ago, with Covid delaying the release of S2. The Guardian hailed it as “totally gripping” and “hugely ambitious” while Radio Times thought it “thoroughly well-made” but criticised the show’s pacing and narrative structure …

➢➢ Last Woman on the Planet (TVNZ 1, 8.30 Monday) has comedienne Sara Pascoe taking on some of the world’s most endangered jobs. The tepidly-reviewed three-part series aired as Last Woman on Earth with Sara Pascoe on BBC2 nearly three years ago. “You had to give Pascoe some respect for doing a couple of the jobs that didn’t look much fun,” The Telegraph acknowledged. “But at other times she treated her hosts with a disrespect that made your whole body cringe” …

➢➢ The return of MKR New Zealand (TVNZ 2, 7.30 Monday/Tuesday) will face off against Three’s newest import, My Mum, Your Dad Australia (7.30 Sunday-Tuesday). It’s already streamed on ThreeNow, and has the tagline: “Single parents look for love the second time around while their adult children watch on in secret and manipulate their dating life” …

➢➢ MKR NZ ushers in a raft of reality newcomers on TVNZ, including Love Island Games (Duke, 8.30 Thursday/Friday), Survivor UK (TVNZ 2, post-9.30 Tuesday/Wednesday), Rush (TVNZ 2, 8.30/9.15 Thursday/Friday), in which three Aussie teams race around the world, and The Voice Australia (TVNZ 2, 7.30 Friday) …

➢➢ TVNZ 2 burns off several TVNZ+ series late night, with the premieres of Deep Heat (11.55 Monday), The Calling (12.20am Tuesday) and The Chemistry of Death (12.35am Wednesday). Deep Heat is a pro-wrestling drama while The Calling features a detective whose Jewish faith and spirituality is his secret weapon (“Sherlock Holmes had unimpeachable inductive reasoning and a cocaine habit. Columbo had faux-naivete and a trench coat. Hercule Poirot had ‘enormous moustaches.’ Avraham Avraham? His hook — nay, his superpower — is his Jewishness,” quipped The Wall Street Journal). Chemistry is a psychological, cinematic crime thriller starring Penny Dreadful’s Harry Treadaway as a forensic anthropologist who reluctantly helps to solve a small-town murder case …

➢➢  Sky Open is double-billing the return of Five Bedrooms (S4, 9.45 Sunday) with the free-to-air run of Pivoting (10.45), a Fox sitcom about how three childhood friends cope with the death of a fourth (it streams on Neon and has screened on Sky Box Sets). “Pivoting definitely has the ‘throw a lot of funny lines at the wall and see which sticks’ vibe of shows like New Girl and Happy Endings,” said Decider …

➢➢ Laura Linney, Dawn French, London Hughes, Adrian Edmondson and Sugababes appear on Thursday’s The Graham Norton Show (Three, 7.30 Thursday) …

➢➢ Duke runs late-night Tour of Southland coverage from Monday while ending their runs are The Voice Kids UK and The Great Aussie Bake Off (in a 90-minute final that pre-empts the Thursday broadcast of Coronation Street, which shifts to 9.30 Friday) …

➢➢ HD coming attractions include: