ScreenScribe

Lightbox will launch on February 18 Stargate Origins, which hitherto could only be streamed on the Stargate Command platform via an in-app purchase. The 10-part series follows Catherine Langford, whose father, archeologist Paul Langford, discovered the eponymousStargate in 1928, when she was a young girl. Young Catherine — whose death as an elderly woman was depicted in season eight of Stargate […]

Series Premiere: Vera (TV One, 8.30) When a young boy is found murdered in his bath, surrounded by flowers, DCI Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate and soon is on the trail of a serial killer. “Brenda Blethyn played a shambolic middle-aged woman with a perpetually puzzled expression. She also happened to be a Chief Inspector […]

Network Premiere: Endeavour (TV One, 8.30) A young Detective Inspector Morse plans to leave the force, only to be pulled back in to work on the case that changed everything. As The Guardian said: “Post-Morse has been pretty much bled dry with Lewis, so now we’re going back to before, and a young detective on his first posting in […]

SoHo Cinema: Hemingway & Gellhorn (Sky 10, 8.30, 5.1) The Hollywood Reporter hailed this HBO dramatisation of Ernest Hemingway’s relationship with his third wife, war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, as “a dynamic, vivid, well-acted look at two major 20th century writers who shared wars on the battlefront and at home”. Entertainment Weekly was equally enthusiastic (“maddeningly, irresistibly […]

TV2’s Sunday night repeat of the first Twilight movie out-rated both TV3’s HD premiere of The Lovely Bones and TV One’s NZ true-crime dramatisation, Safe House. Safe House opened this year’s Audi NZ Sunday Theatre season and averaged 5.1%-7.9% of key demographics compared with Twilight’s 8.2%-12.9% and Bones’ 5.7%-7.8%. Bones finished second to Twilight in […]

SoHo Premiere: The Gathering Storm (Sky 10, 8.30, 5.1) The first volume of Winston Churchill’s Second World War memoirs was first dramatised for TV nearly 40 years ago and starred Richard Burton. But that production couldn’t muster any of this Storm’s multiple Emmys, Baftas and Golden Globes. It opens in 1934 and chronicles Churchill’s return […]

TV One’s HD premiere of Shackleton’s Captain foundered in the ratings on Sunday, with the two-hour broadcast averaging only 4.3% of the network’s target audience, 25-54 year-olds. It opened with 6.1% at 9.30pm but closed with only 3.0%. The docudrama rated fractionally higher with household shoppers, but followed the same trend, and averaged only 3.3%-3.4% […]

Series Premiere: Hounds (TV3, 10.00) A shiftless lawyer inherits a half-sister, half a house, and an alcoholic dog trainer after his father dies suddenly at the dog track. TV3 could be on to a winner with this Kiwi comedy if advance reviews are any guide to its form. “This isn’t the laugh-out-loud, neon-lit, canned-laughter comedy we […]