HDTV Heads-Up: November 3-9

The Walking Dead may have become US TV’s highest-rated non-sports hit in the coveted 18-49 demo but that hasn’t stopped TV2 from giving the latest season the graveyard shift.

The good news is season three will go to air barely a month after its US premiere – but in a 10.30 slot where other top US dramas like Fringe and Shameless have been consigned.

From November 14, it will screen post-Revolution on Wednesday nights in the first of two blocks.

This is how the series airs in the US whereas TV2 stockpiled season two until it still had enough episodes to run the blocks back-to-back.

The season three “premiere shocker” [spoiler] was the highest-rating episode in the show’s history, drawing 10.9 million viewers to shatter basic cable ratings.

Reviews ranged from “The Walking Dead, the flat-out scariest, best, most unusual show to ever hit the small screen, is back, and I’m loving every sickening minute of it” to the premiere “doesn’t advance the story much — shades of early season two — but there’s enough zombie carnage that fans of mayhem may not care.”

Season two was released on Blu-ray in June but will be bundled with season one as a $75 box set on November 28.

Meanwhile, season one slaughtered the competition at the 2012 Reaper Awards, where it earned not only the Grimmy for Best TV on Disc but also for Title of the Year.

Returning Tuesday of the same week is The Closer (TV One, 11.05) – but not in HD.

Although the network aired season five in HD, season six will revert to SD.

Presumably the HD deal was done for season five when TVNZ still thought the Kyra Sedgwick cop show had primetime prospects; by the time season six was due for delivery, it must have opted to save on master and transmission costs.

Hopefully, the same fate won’t await season five of late-night stablemate Southland (the yet-to-screen season four will be in HD).

Also of note in HD for the week starting November 3:

❑ New episodes of The Graeme Norton Show, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Miranda Hart and Ronnie Corbett lining up for Friday’s season-12 premiere (TV3, 8.30)

❑ TV3 will use a third, weekly episode of The X Factor USA on Wednesday to bump The Killing to post-Nightline

❑ Foodies Annabel Langbein and Sean Connolly will go one-on-one when the latter’s new series, On the Grill, starts on Saturday (TV3, 7.00)

❑ The network movie premiere of Clash of the Titans on Sunday (TV2, 8.30) and re-runs of Invictus on Saturday (TV One, 10.35) and What Happens in Vegas on Sunday (TV3, 8.30)

❑ Season finales of Californication on Monday (TV3, 9.40) and Motorway Patrol on Thursday (TV2, 8.00).