HDTV Heads-Up: January 12-18

The networks roll out the first of their new-season attractions this week, with both TV2 and TV3 using returning HD hits to bed in the schedule before launching newcomers.

On Monday TV2 will resume Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice from towards the end of their previous seasons, presumably with the intention of running their latest seasons back-to-back, while on Tuesday TV3 will bring back NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles, starting from their 10th and fourth seasons respectively.

TV2 also will launch Shortland Street’s 21st year the same week and TV3 will debut season eight of Bones on Thursday.

However, there is one series premiere among the raft of returning shows: 666 Park Avenue, which will air 8.30 Fridays.

About the spooky goings-on in a Manhattan apartment building, reviews ranged from a “stylish Gothic thriller” (Newsday) to, “it’s not even an ounce scary” (The Hollywood Reporter).

Other critics agreed it wasn’t as “jumpy” as American Horror Story but “still great fun“.

Also new, but consigned to midnight Thursdays because it tanked two years ago in the US, is Chase.

It stars Kelli Giddish, who next will be seen in SVU, as a US Marshall and barely lasted the 2010/11 season on US TV.

Most critics thought the Jerry Bruckheimer thriller delivered “just what its name promises, and not much more“.

But the New York Times argued: “The good side of the kabuki-like formalism of the Bruckheimer approach is that the story moves like a bullet toward the inevitable apprehension of the fugitive, flying past leaden dialogue and plot holes so quickly that if you enjoy the crime-drama formulas that are in play, you can enjoy the show.”

Also of note in HD for the week starting January 12 are:

❑ The movies Alice in Wonderland on Sunday (TV2, 7.00), Percy Jackson and the Olympians on Monday (TV3, 8.30), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban on Tuesday (TV2, 7.30) and Repo Men on Wednesday (TV3, 8.30)

❑ The Wednesday night return of The Middle (from midway through season two) and The Big Bang Theory (from midway through season five)

❑ Re-runs of TV2’s Friends in a new 6pm weekday slot — Neighbours will screen at 6.30 — and of TV3’s Underbelly: The Golden Mile (11.00 Tuesdays)

❑ Eddie Izzard, Krysten Ritter and Jesse Tyler Ferguson on Thursday’s season finale of Rove LA (TV3, 11.00), and Secret Diary of  Call Girl’s Billie Piper and Frank Skinner on Friday’s The Graham Norton Show (TV3, 8.30)

❑ Season finales of High Country Rescue on Monday (TV One, 8.00) and Criminal Minds on Wednesday (TV One, 9.30).