Sunday Night Shake-Up in Store

Sunday night schedules will get a pre-spring clean later this month when TV One launches its Hillary miniseries, TV2 unveils a local version of You’re Back in the Room, TV3 triple-bills movies and Prime moves Weekend Murders from Saturdays.

Hillary is a six-part dramatisation of the mountaineer’s life and triumphs starring Andrew Munro (The Kick) as Sir Edmund Hillary, Dean O’Gorman (The Hobbit) as his long-time climbing companion and friend, George Lowe, and Amy Usherwood (Shortland Street) as his wife, Lady Louise Hillary.

The rest of the cast includes Alison Bruce (Top of the Lake), Stephen Lovatt (Arcadia), Joel Tobeck (Interrogation), Jared Turner (Go Girls), Ryan O’Kane (Housebound), Peter Daube (What Really Happened), Mick Rose (Tangiwai) and Darren Young (Siege).

The Tom Scott-Greg McGee collaboration was made with nearly $6.5 million from NZ On Air’s Platinum Fund and is based on what Hillary told Scott for his biography.

It will air 8.30 Sundays from August 21, the same night TV2 premieres You’re Back in the Room at 7.00.

Jason Gunn will host the 90-minute Kiwi version of the British game show, in which Peter Powers hypnotises the contestants.

TV3 will use movies to compete with both, opening with the network premiere of The Maze Runner and continuing with a repeat of the re-make of The Thing.

They will overlap with Prime’s rescheduling of Weekend Murders from Saturday to 8.30 Sunday.

The new season will open with the return of Lewis, which will air here for the first time in HD.

The opening case is from season eight, which ITV originally aired nearly two years ago; the ninth and final series went to air in October 2015.