HD Highlights: August 20

SoHo Highlight: The Newsroom (Sky 10, 8.30, 5.1) Mac asserts her control of the News Night rundown; Jim takes a fall for Maggie; a break-up secret gets out. As The Huffington Post observed at this early stage of the news drama’s run: “There appears to be an interesting critical split emerging around The Newsroom. Reviewers — including myself — have mostly weighed in with negative assessments, while viewers have tended to praise the show much more fulsomely. The split has seemed so wide, in fact, that I worried that I’d been too cynical and too hard on the show. But the second episode, ‘Newsnight 2.0,’ did not do much to bolster my hopes for The Newsroom. To be clear: For a series with so many problems, both episodes have mostly held my interest throughout, and as with the pilot, there are frustrating glimpses of a better show lurking within the hour. It’s too bad that show hasn’t fully emerged yet.” ✭✭✩

Sky Movies Greats: Panic Room (Sky 22, 8.30, 5.1) In this David Fincher thriller, Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart are a divorcee and daughter fleeing from three intruders in their Manhattan mansion. Their refuge is a “panic room”, a secret hi-tech sanctuary wired for security and surveillance with just one snag: it’s where several million dollars that belonged to the previous owner is hidden. Consequently, the thieves want in but they don’t want out. It’s a vicarious cat-and-mouse contest that made for thrilling, ingeniously mounted, big-screen escapism but lacks the depth of character and plot to satisfy or enthral on the small screen. (2002) ✭✭✭✩

❑ Movie: Transporter 3 (TV3, 8.30, R) The latest in the rowdy Audi franchise breaks as many laws of physics as the hero does his own rules of conduct. Jason Statham buckles up for another exciting but spectacularly stupid spin as the ultra-cool killer courier who usually delivers dangerous goods without deliberation — except when his “cargo” is a young Ukranian woman who’s been abducted to exploit her father’s powerful political connections. There are some great hi-tech twists but the stunts and heroics are so extreme that the movie becomes ludicrous. (2008) ✭✭✩