Keep Calm — Jamie Will Carry On

TVNZ 1 is dumping Surveillance Oz (7.30 Wednesdays) from April 8 to fast-track a new Jamie Oliver series with a quarantine flavour, Jamie: Keep Cooking and Carry On.

Designed to help people whose pantries aren’t overflowing during the COVID-19 lockdown, it dishes up easy recipes and cooking tips using items typically found in one’s cupboard.

“The first episode was met with approval from viewers who called it ‘helpful, resourceful and creative’ as people struggle to find basics including pasta and rice in supermarkets,” The Sun reports.

It went to air this week in the UK and is one of many scheduling changes TVNZ announced overnight.

Duke is is postponing next month’s launch of Late Night Big Breakfast and will replace it with Leigh Hart’s Late Night Big Lock In (8.30 Sundays from April 5). Reads the blurb:

In these strange times, the nation needs a hero. The nation needs Leigh Hart. Broadcasting from his country lodge in isolation, Leigh will provide some survival tips and answer your questions.

The 9.00 episode of Family Guy is being dropped to accommodate the change; Lock In also will air post-11.00 Tuesdays on TVNZ 2.

And TVNZ 2 is ditching its late Friday afternoon line-up for movies, starting today with Angry Birds (4.10) replacing The Deep, Friends, The Simpsons and Young Sheldon.

Scheduled for next week is Dolphin Tale 2 (4.35) and on April 10, Cars (4.40).

TVNZ 2 also has added Party Pensioners: Sex, Drugs & Bingo to its April 3 line-up at 9.50.

And replacing Have You Been Paying Attention? (TVNZ 2, 7.30 Wednesdays) over the next few weeks will be Highway Patrol specials Crazy Encounters (April 1) and Drivers Behaving Badly (April 8).

The 10.30 Thursday Duke repeats of HYBPA will be replaced by stand-up specials Josh Widdicombe – And Another Thing (April 2) and Jon Richardson: Nidiot Live (April 9).

Three, meanwhile, has added to tonight’s schedule the 7.30 special, Coronavirus: How to Isolate Yourself. The movie, The Bourne Identity, will now screen at 8.25 and Modern Family at 10.35 instead of Newshub Late.

Lastly, because of slot changes due to “reduced sales time” within some programmes, TVNZ 2 will screen an extra episode of Young Sheldon on Monday; the first will air at 5.25 and the second at 5.45.