New Season Roll-out Poised to Surge

Expect the networks to have most of their new-season HD shows on air by the first week in February, with several screening within weeks of their US transmissions.

Being bedded in this week and next are the return of Shortland Street, Criminal Minds, Bones and Home and Away, and the premieres of 666 Park Avenue and Africa.

By this time next month, TV2 should be airing new episodes of Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, Once Upon a Time, Revenge, The Vampire Diaries and Fringe (the two-hour series finale of which screens this week in the US).

Likewise, Modern Family and Sons of Anarchy should have hit the road again on TV3 while TV One will have launched new episodes of Aussie crowdpleasers Winners and Losers and Packed to the Rafters within days of each other.

TV One also will have a raft of new HD dramas, including:

The Following: Violent Kevin Bacon thriller about the search for a serial killer mastermind, which starts Monday in the US;

Nashville: Acclaimed country music drama that could be a tough sell in this market but in which TVNZ has invested heavily;

Scandal: New drama from the creator of Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice about a White House PR “fixer”;

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries: The Slap’s Essie Davis plays a sleuth in 1920s Melbourne.

TV2, meanwhile, is taking a leaf out of SoHo’s book and preceding its launch of the Sex and the City prequel, The Carrie Diaries, by offering it online, at TVNZ Ondemand, from January 21, a week after its US bow.

TV3’s bevy of HD beauts should include:

The Americans: Cable spy drama about Russian sleepers in Reagan’s America that stars Keri Russell (Felicity, Running Wilde) and which premieres January 30 in the US;

Go On: Friends’ Matthew Perry plays a widowed sportscaster in therapy in a comedy that earned mixed reviews but has rated credibly for NBC;

Sunny Skies: Kiwi comedy starring Oliver Driver and Tammy Davis as brothers who inherit a campground;

The Blue Rose: Outrageous Fortune’s Antonia Prebble and Siobhan Marshall reunite as unlikely corporate skulduggery troubleshooters;

Crime Exposed: Observational documentary series that combines never-seen footage of police intelligence gathering and analysis, forensics and crime-fighting;

Territory Cops: On the beat and off-the-beaten-track with Darwin’s police force.

Also watch for The X Factor NZ, which concludes its auditions around the country on February 6.