HD Heads-Up: September 13-19

September 4, 2025 0 Comments

➢➢ Ultimate Escape (Three, 7.30 Monday) is an Australian “high-stakes, adrenaline-fuelled adventure series” filmed in NZ. According to the Kiwi camera operator, “The production was divided between two units: one following contestants braving the raw elements of the New Zealand wilderness in early winter, and the other documenting life inside a secluded Rotorua lake lodge known as The Hold. While the field unit endured short daylight hours, freezing temperatures, rain and vast terrain, my assignment was within The Hold, where contestants faced the mental challenge of problem-solving under pressure. Inside The Hold, one half of each team was confined with only the bare essentials: a bed, a chair, a desk, a TV displaying the stage maps, an iPad for tackling puzzles and riddles, and a limited supply of food. Their mission was to guide their partner, simultaneously pushing through the wilderness, using only short bursts of restricted communication. Success demanded teamwork, resilience, and the ability to exchange critical information under extreme constraints. The ultimate prize: $100,000″ …

➢➢ Tangata Pai (Three, 8.30 Tuesday) is the first first mainstream primetime production with 30% of its dialogue in te reo Māori. It revolves around five people whose lives collide when a bomb is detonated at a peaceful Māori protest against a licence to mine a sacred site. Nicola Kāwana (One Lane Bridge), Shavaughn Ruakere (The Legend of Baron To’a), Jayden Daniels (Head High), Ariāna Osborne (Madam) and Yoson An (Mulan) star. You can view the trailer here …

➢➢ Eden is dropping its Sunday night movie for a new season of Moonshiners at 8.30 and crime drama Blackshore at 9.30. The latter concerns a big-city detective whose tragic past looms when she’s banished to a rural backwater uncomfortably close to her home town, where she investigates a missing person case. The blurb promises “a dark thriller [that] explores the DNA of one town’s relationship with shame, guilt, and the price of success” while the Irish Times said it “ticks off cliches by the barrel load” but is “silly and watchable” and “for all its flaws, one of the better thrillers RTÉ has put on screen recently” …

➢➢ TVNZ 1 launches new seasons of Fishing & Adventure (4.30 Sunday), New Zealand’s Best Homes With Phil Spencer (7.30 Sunday) and George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces (7.30 Thursday) as well as S2 of The Couple Next Door (9.30 Sunday), in which a couple’s friendship with their neighbours takes a sinister turn. “It’s as daft as a brush but, on a surface level, it is entertaining,” The Times said while the London Standard declared audiences may have found S1 “fitted snugly into guilty pleasure territory, but this new helping is not ridiculous, or carnal, enough for that” …

➢➢ Also new are the return of Highway Cops (TVNZ 1, 7.30 Tuesday) and Dog Squad (TVNZ 1, 8.00 Tuesday) while making its belated TVNZ 2 debut is the 2013-14 NBC series, Dracula (12.25am Saturday), which has been streaming on TVNZ+ …

➢➢ Ending their runs are: