New to TVNZ OnDemand in April
March 24, 2022 
5 Comments
As well as the launch of Star Trek: Discovery and the Paramount+ miniseries about the making-of The Godfather saga, TVNZ OnDemand will premiere two UK drama series in April.
No Return (full season, April 16) concerns a British family’s efforts to free their son from a Turkish jail.
Radio Times predicted the four-part Danny (Safe, Brassic) Brockelhurst thriller “will keep parents up at night … well worth a watch“.
But the Independent argued “a rather tacky bait-and-switch sets the tone for a thriller that has as much to say about the trials of package holidays as it does about the criminal justice system”.
Season two of Smother (April 3, full season) opens soon after the shocking S1 finale, when a mysterious stranger arrives at the Ahern family’s door.
Said The Times: “Destructive love affairs, custody-battle subterfuge and ruinous financial chicanery dominated the first series of the feuding-family drama, much of which unfolded within the plush confines of a stylishly designed house on the Clare coast.
“For the follow-up season, however, the nature of the threat seems to have been amped up and dumbed down, rendered simultaneously louder and hokier.”
Star Trek: Discovery (April 1) will land with the first four seasons while the 10-part The Offer (April 29) will premiere with a triple episode, then stream weekly.
Secrets of Playboy (full season, April 5) unravels “the glamorous mythology that surrounded the brand for decades”, complete with archive footage and exclusive interviews with Playboy insiders.
Also new will be box sets of Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce (April 8) and Jamestown (April 12), S7 of The Bachelorette Australia (full season, April 25), S2 of Transplant (full season, April 18) and O’Town Dreaming (full season, April 14), in which seven young Otara musicians tell their raw stories.
Children’s premieres will include S52 of Sesame Street (April 1), S2 of Yap Trap (April 4), the return of Madagascar: A Little Wild (April 5) and the premiere of The Croods: Family Tree (April 6).
Among April’s other highlights will be From The Vault: Anzac (April 1), Sabrina the Teenage Witch (S2-7, April 11) and The Canterville Ghost (S1, April 20).
Branded channel newcomers range from Metalocalypse, Squidbillies and the return of Robot Chicken on [Adult Swim] to Lifetime’s Liz and Dick, which stars Lindsay Lohan as Elizabeth Taylor and Grant Bowler as Richard Burton.
Also new from April 1 will be:
Filmstream
The Attack
Tanna
iWonder
Everything In Between
Bush to Belly
Motley’s Law
Rise Above
Operation Valkyrie: The Plot to Kill Hitler
Lifetime
The Neighbor in the Window
Who Killed JonBenet?
Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy
Outdoor Channel
Beyond Survival S1
OUTtv
Queens and Cowboys
Nubia Amplified S1a
Cheetah in August S2b
Metro Sexual S2b
Pulse
Crash and Burn
Dina
Hillary: Ocean to Sky
Walrus and the Whistleblower
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March 25, 2022 at 6:00 pm
Watched Halo on TVNZ OnDemand. AWFUL!!! What a waste of $200m.
Enjoyed the first episode of Halo in 4K Dolby Vision with Dolby Atmos! The overhead effects were good at times. Clearly it’s not used all the time just like the surrounds but hey – it adds to a new level of surround sound. It’s a 3D surround experience which basic 5.1 doesn’t deliver. Nor does TVNZ OnDemand offer any kind of good audio in the first place!
You may think that, thx1138, but Halo set a premiere viewership record for Paramount+. According to Deadline, “Halo has set a new record as the service’s most-watched series premiere globally in its first 24 hours of release, topping the previous mark established by Yellowstone prequel 1883 in December.”
Don’t forget that TVNZ has among the worst quality. So it will affect your enjoyment. If you did watch in 4K with surround sound you might reconsider.
Will those eyeballs continue to watch? Reviews have not been kind. I watched it on Freeview – picture and sound were good enough to highlight the poor special effects, where did the money go? 4K won’t disguise the lame story and lack of acting chops =)