HDTV Heads-Up: September 8-14

Who has the most talent?

Viewers will find out when NZ’s Got Talent and The X Factor USA go to air next month within days of each other.

NZ’s Got Talent will premiere on September 9 (TV One 7.30), with judges Rachel Hunter, Ali Campbell and Jason Kerrison, while X Factor will have a two-hour launch on September 13 (TV3, 7.30).

Both series will air in HD, with NZ’s Got Talent spearheading a three-hour HD block on TV One that includes another show with local talent, Nothing Trivial, and Offspring.

The scheduling should help to boost Nothing Trivial’s ratings, which were modest for its season premiere, and coincides with TV2 re-instating Sunday night HD re-runs of The Big Bang Theory to sandwich Betty White’s Off Their Rockers.

The X Factor also anchors a new-look line-up for TV3, which will include the September 12 premiere of the latest Underbelly instalment, Badness.

It dramatises how two brothers triggered the biggest manhunt inquiry in New South Wales history and stars The Slap’s Jonathan LaPaglia.

Although the shine has gone off Underbelly here, with the Razor and Underbelly NZ rating below expectations, “clunky title aside, Badness returns the Underbelly franchise to where it works best, a contemporary setting,” said The Age, “in this case events that took place in Sydney between 2001 and 2012 …

“It’s a strong yarn and looks terrific. It’s hardly flawless but it possesses a vitality that exploits its richest element: a compelling true-crime story.”

It will follow the return of HD reality hit Drug Bust at 8.00 and precede another new crime drama, The Killing, which TV3 will repeat the premiere of, along with Smash, as a Saturday double-bill on September 8 (pre-empting CSI sister shows New York and Miami).

The same week TV3 will re-run three movies in HD — Waitress (10.30 Saturday), Ghost Town (8.30 Sunday), X-Men: The Last Stand (8.30 Monday) – and TV2 will premiere season two of the US Shameless (11.30 Monday).