New to TVNZ OnDemand in March

Acclaimed Australian thriller The Gloaming will stream exclusively on TVNZ OnDemand from March 28.

Kiwis Martin Henderson and Rena Owen co-star with Emma Booth and Ewen Leslie (The Cry) in a murder mystery that combines dirty politics and dodgy deals with sinister crimes and the occult.

“The Gloaming is the latest in an emerging trend of Tasmania-based productions that view the island state as a place of terrible beauty, located somewhere south of the mainland and west of hell,” The Guardian said.

It hailed the eight-part series that Stan commissioned as a “moody and noirish … fog-swamped crime drama” with shades of Twin Peaks.

ScreenHub thought it “gorgeously shot” but said the first three episodes “barely delivered on the Wicker Man-like folk-horror imagery promised by the trailer”.

Press (March 18) is a 2018 newspaper drama from Mike Bartlett (Life, Doctor Foster) that first streamed two years ago on Lightbox.

It’s described as “a thoughtful take on the newsroom that strikes a balance between authenticity and high drama” and is one of three Lightbox resurrections on TVNZ.

It’s also picked up the first two seasons of Icelandic thriller Trapped, hopefully as the curtain-raiser for S3 (which is due this year), and S1-4 of pirates saga Black Sails (March 7).

Other box-set blasts from the past include S1-4 of Nikita (March 20), S1-3 of Suburbatory, S1-5 of Scott and Bailey, S1-4 of Whitechapel, the 2012 supernatural miniseries The Secret of Crickley Hall (March 24), S1 of the BBC courtroom comedy Defending the Guilty (March 29), and the 2017 miniseries about a teenage psychopath, Born to Kill.

Banished (March 7) is a 2015 Jimmy McGovern drama series set in an Australian penal colony. “If unending bloody misery is the sprinkle of magical fairy dust on a drama – which, judging by the popularity of the writer’s previous output (Cracker, Accused), it is – Banished pulls a blinder,” The Guardian said.

Local premieres for March include new seasons of Kitchen Science and My Māori Midwife (March 6), From the Vault: Sailing and Scratched: Aotearoa’s Lost Sporting Legends S1-2 (March 22).

New to TVNZ OnDemand’s branded channels are:

[adult swim]

• The Eric Andre Show S1-4
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force S2-7
• Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law S2-4

Filmstream

• Zama
• Sex Lives of Plants

iWonder

• Banksters
• The Beatles, Hippies and Hell’s Angels: Inside the Crazy World of Apple
• Playground Murder Plot
• Living Dolls
• Voyage of Curiosity
• Chernobyl Reclaimed

Lifetime

• The Unauthorised Beverly Hills, 90210 Story
• The Unauthorised Melrose Place Story
• Happy Face Killer
• Victoria Gotti: My Father’s Daughter

Outdoor Channel

• The Obsession of Carter Andrews S2
• Yukon Gold S5

OutTV

• Broken English Virtual Concert with BeBe Zahara Benet
• Nubia Amplified
• Stranger Hearts S1
• Love is Blind S1
• She Shears 

Pulse

• Looking for Lenny
• We Are X
• Gardening with Soul

Walter Presents

• Madam K S1
• The Defence (a.k.a. The Disappearance) S1