HD Heads-Up: September 5 – 11

August 27, 2020 0 Comments

➢➢ TVNZ 1’s The Salisbury Poisonings (September 6, 8.30) dramatises the 2018 poison-ings of a former Russian double agent and his daughter in an English cathedral town. The Sydney Morning Herald called it “an extraordinary drama about ordinary people … It would have been easy to make an espionage thriller about what happened to 66-year-old Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, and the ensuing political fallout. Instead, writers Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson, both journalists who have worked on the BBC current affairs programme Panorama, have chosen to explore the impact on the ordinary citizens of Salisbury, who became collateral damage” …

➢➢ The four-part series aired on consecutive nights in Australia but TVNZ 1 is airing it in two two-hour Sunday night instalments, following on from the top-rating Murder in the Outback and ahead of the return of the local real-life whodunnit, Cold Case …

➢➢ The Farmer Wants a Wife (TVNZ 2, 8.45 Mondays from September 7) follows five Australian farmers looking for love in a revival of a series that ran for nine seasons in its first incarnation. The reboot went to air air last month on Seven, where one critic called it “a breath of clean air“, and already has been renewed for “an even bigger and bolder season” next year after performing well on-demand …

➢➢ Three will succeed Australian Ninja Warrior with American Ninja Warrior: USA vs The World (7.30 Mondays from September 7). Competitors from American Ninja Warrior will go head to head with ninjas from Europe, USA and Australia. Meanwhile, 2011 Ninja winner Drew Drechsel has been edited out of the latest all-stars season in the US following his arrest on child-sex related charges …

➢➢ Prime is adding live coverage of the 2020 Farah Palmer Cup to its schedule, starting with the Counties Manukau vs North Harbour match (September 5, 2.30) …

➢➢ Prime also has picked up Suits: Jessica Pearson for a late-night free-to-air run (10.30 Fridays from September 11) …

➢➢ Also new that week will be The World’s Deadliest (TVNZ 1, 9.25 Mondays) while ending their runs will be Artefact, Unforgotten, Inside Taronga Zoo, Inside Buckingham Palace, Meat the Family, SVU, World’s Wildest Flights, Kings of Pain, The Passage, Michael McIntyre’s Big Show and The Mallorca Files …

➢➢ TVNZ 2 will premiere three movies in the week starting September 5: Early Man (7.00 Saturday), Father Figures (8.40 Sunday) and Unforgettable (10.55 Sunday) while Maori TV will debut the feature-length documentary Seed: The Untold Story (8.30 Monday). Other HD coming attractions will include: