New to TVNZ+: April 18-24
April 9, 2026 
5 Comments
TVNZ has scored the latest series from Baby Reindeer creator Richard Gadd that’s HBO-bound in the US and UK.
Half Man follows the fractured friendship of Niall and Ruben (Gadd, Jamie Bell), from when they bond as troubled teenagers to falling out as adults.
When Niall shows up at Ruben’s wedding, “everything seems different,” the blurb reads:
He is on edge. Shifty. Not acting like himself. And soon, an explosion of violence takes place which catapults us back through their lives, from the eighties to the present day. Capturing 30 years in the lives of these broken men, Half Man is a six-part limited series exploring brotherhood, violence, and the intense fragility of male relationships. After all, when things fall apart, it is sometimes the closest relationships which break the hardest.
TVNZ licensed Half Man through Banijay Rights, the global distribution arm of Banijay Entertainment.
Stan will stream it in Australia while the BBC will air it within 24 hours of HBO.
It premieres April 24 on TVNZ+, with subsequent episodes rolling out weekly, and will screen on TVNZ 1 from April 28.
Here’s the trailer.
TVNZ+ complements Half Man’s debut with the same-day premiere of Men of the Manosphere, which the BBC broadcast months ahead of Netflix’s Louis Theroux take on toxic masculinity, Inside the Manosphere. Reads the blurb:
James Blake enters the manosphere, a world where self-improvement coaches, ‘red pill’ preachers, and social media influencers promise young men quick answers to all the challenges life throws at them. As James journeys through this world, he reflects on the various reasons for going online and examines his own experiences.
The Guardian dubbed it “thoughtful, tender, terrifying” while the Church Times said it “takes a sensitive approach to a complex topic”.
Also new are season four of eerie small-town mystery FROM (weekly from April 20) and The Accident (April 22), a Spanish language drama about how an airplane crash sparks “a family’s upheaval, a drug kingpin’s escalation, and a town’s reckoning”.
I know the answer but I’ll ask anyway – no one here is planning to pick up Hacks for its final season are they? I suspect I might have to wait for HBO Max to arrive mid-year to watch it properly. Last year I watched season 4 on Air New Zealand flights (there and back) to Sydney, which seems preposterous it was the only ‘legal’ way to watch it. PS: Still waiting on the Cheers boxset … might be stuck in the strait of Hormuz … — Clint.
Hey, Clint. No one’s picking up Hacks for its penultimate or final season. At one stage a pre-Sky Three appeared to have acquired it for ThreeNow but that turned out to be a misunderstanding. I’m afraid your HBO Max hopes will be dashed, too — HBO doesn’t have the NZ rights, so it won’t be on the NZ platform. NBCUniversal is the distributor and despite deals with TVNZ and Sky, neither seems interested in the title. TVNZ+ abandoned it after three seasons because the streaming numbers didn’t stack up. The only hope would be for a Sky Comedy run but Sky’s new emphasis on broad-appeal fare — ditching niche-driven HBO content for more popular Paramount shows — makes this highly unlikely. In the meantime, Variety has just praised the series finale for cementing Hacks’ “legacy as one of TV’s best comedies”.
Ah yes, I’d forgotten that NBCUniversal snafu from last year or the year before – unfortunate as it really is excellent and the fourth season lost no steam. A shame that neither seems interested in it – feels like it could even have some success for TVNZ as a late-night stripped show on TVNZ 1 like they did with Episodes a couple of years ago. — Clint.
I see the BBC News channel is being offered for free via Nine’s on demand platform Nine Now in Australia. Will this channel also be a part of the new look TVNZ+ Philip? On a second note, do you think Sky will push for a free to air Food Network channel for the old Eden+1/Sky Open+1 place holders? I only say this because there is so much WBD Food Network shows airing across its many FTA channels, it makes sense to consolidate them into one channel 24/7. — Leo.
Yes, Leo, a 24/7 FTA news service like the BBC’s would be a fine addition to the new-look TVNZ+. But TVNZ has yet to share details of its TVNZ+ plans (it’s still in the final stages of testing) — and BBC News sounds a long shot given the expansion of BBC content on Sky’s channels. Interesting thought re a Food Network channel.