HDTV Heads-Up: December 22-28

The Ewings will ride again when TV One saddles up the HD reboot of Dallas on December 28.

It will air 8.30pm Fridays in double-episodes on the same channel that aired the original Southfork soap 30 years ago.

People magazine thought it “a comfy piece of nostalgia that doubles as a fresh guilty pleasure” and Entertainment Weekly “a solidly constructed soap opera with strong dialogue and oily plot twists”.

Concurred Variety: “TNT’s take on the classic primetime serial is exactly as it should be: Texas-sized, frothy and unwilling to settle for a double-cross when a triple can be executed.”

But trade paper rival The Hollywood Reporter thought the opposite: “Dallas is terrible …

“The writing is brutal and obvious, the acting is comical, and none of it is bettered by the directing.”

And USA Today quipped: “You can find mummies who look fresher than this mold-encrusted relic, and who have newer ideas in their empty, embalmed heads.”

Opposite Dallas’ debut TV2 will repeat The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring but not, inexplicably, in HD.

Also of note in HD for the week starting December 22:

❑ The network premieres of Disney’s A Christmas Carol on Sunday (TV2, 7.00), and The Princess and the Frog and 2012 on Wednesday (TV2, 5.05/7.30)

❑ Christmas Eve repeats of Nanny McPhee Returns (TV3, 7.20), New in Town (TV3, 9.05), Four Holidays (TV2, 9.20), Adam (TV3, 10.45) and The Accidental Husband (TV2, 2.45), and of Marley & Me on Thursday (TV3, 8.30)

❑ Re-runs of 2 Broke Girls in Shortland Street’s weeknight slot from Wednesday (TV2, 7.00), The Food Truck on Saturdays (TV One, 7.00) and WANNA-Ben on Fridays (TV3, 9.30)