Tonight in HD: May 10

SoHo Highlights: Girls/Veep (Sky 10, 8.30/9.00, 5.1) New girl power double-bill that should delight fans of hits as diverse as Sex & the City and The Thick Of It. Girls concerns four young New Yorkers who are lower down the the socio-economic scale than Carrie and co but confronting the same dating and identity issues. As creator and star Lena Dunham told Time magazine about her pitch to HBO: “Here’s the kind of show I would want to see. Here’s what my friends are like. They don’t have jobs, but they’re really smart. They take Ritalin for fun, but they’re not that f—ed up. They’re having these kind of degrading sexual relationships, but they’re feminists.” Veep, from Thick Of It creator Armando Iannucci, stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the under-siege vice-president of the US and sounds like her funniest vehicle since Seinfeld, with most reviewers, like TV Guide, giving it two thumbs up: “Much more conventional than Girls in its savagely profane workplace humour, its bad behaviour recalls Curb Your Enthusiasm while the setting is reminiscent of The Larry Sanders Show in its hysterical behind-the-curtain peek at dysfunction and incompetence in high places.” ✮✮✮✮

Home & Away (TV3, 5.30) Indi sees Romeo and Ruby together; Sasha sneaks out after being grounded by Sid; John’s after revenge on Harvey. ✮✮

Friends (TV2, 6.30, R) Joey discovers that Monica and Chandler are dating, and Ross has to tell Rachel that he can’t be friends with her anymore. ✮✮✮✮

Shortland Street (TV2, 7.00) Chris is swept up in a game beyond his control; Brooke gets enough rope to hang herself; Vasa’s lies rebound painfully. ✮✮✮

Network Movie Premiere: The Hurt Locker (TV One, 8.30, 5.1) The winner of six Oscars dramatises the hair-trigger tensions within a US Army bomb disposal squad in Iraq when an adrenalin junkie recklessly undertakes spectacularly heroic feats that jeopardise the lives of fellow soldiers. The first half is a heart-stopping tour-de-force of action, suspense and dread that captures the contradictions and paranoia of being an occupying force in a territory that’s booby-trapped to the hilt; the second half loses momentum but is still a riveting showcase of filmmaking skill. Kathryn Bigelow, who became the first female filmmaker to win a best director Oscar, directs Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes and David Morse. (2009) ✮✮✮✮

Once Upon a Time (TV2, 8.30, 5.1) Mary Margaret teams with Leroy to help the Storybrooke nuns sell candles during the town festival, and grumpy falls in love with a beautiful fairy. ✮✮

The Finder (TV3, 8.30, 5.1) A marriage is on the rocks unless Walter can track down a chef – who’s on the run from the mob – to find the recipe for a couple’s favourite anniversary meal. ✮✮

Season premiere: Fringe (TV2, 10.30, 5.1) One week after Peter Bishop saved the day and was then wiped from existence, the truce between the two worlds remains intact and the two sides are forced to work together. Entertainment Weekly provided this helpful recap for those who need a crash course in Fringe-thology: “Three years ago: Olivia Dunham lost a closer-than-close partner and joined a secret division of the FBI devoted to investigating weird science crimes. Two years ago: Deadly shape-shifting terrorists from Another Earth began infiltrating our world to pursue a cryptic agenda. One year ago: Against the backdrop of mounting tensions between two imperiled, warring realities, a brainwashed hero kept seeing glimpses of a loved one she no longer recognised. Now: Neither Here Nor There synthesised key elements of past premieres to launch a rebooted Fringeverse, one where many of the archetypes and events (surprisingly) remain much the same, with one profound exception: Peter Bishop has been scrubbed from history, apparently from the point of his childhood death.” ✮✮✮✮

Sky Movies Greats Premiere: Predator (Sky 22, 8.30, 5.1) The Terminator meets Aliens in this Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner about elite commandos being picked off for ET tucker. The special effects were startling for their time but little else surprises. Die Hard’s John McTiernan directs an undistinguished cast that includes Jesse Ventura, Carl Weathers and Lethal Weapon/Kiss Kiss Bang Bang scribe Shane Black. (1987) ✮✮