TVNZ 2 Launches New Season With Little Bang
January 29, 2018 
10 Comments
TVNZ 2 at last will premiere The Big Bang Theory spin-off Young Sheldon on February 12.
The prequel will follow the season premiere of My Kitchen Rules Australia (above) and be the new lead-in to the return of Will & Grace.
TVNZ 2 will round off the night with a repeat of the two most recent Big Bang eps before resuming season 10 on February 14 in its Wednesday night slot ahead of the return of Mom.
My Kitchen Rules will screen 7.30 Monday-Wednesday opposite Three’s Aussie powerhouse, Married at First Sight, which starts on February 5.
Young Sheldon has been a big hit in the US, with CBS already ordering a second season.
“Young Sheldon‘s early pickup is no surprise,” TV Guide reported.
It’s the #1 new comedy in viewers (16.2 million) and ratings among adults 18-49 (3.3) and 25-54 (4.9), and the #2 comedy in all of television, behind only The Big Bang Theory.
The series stars Iain Armitage as the 9-year-old boy genius version of Big Bang‘s Sheldon Cooper, with narration provided by Jim Parsons as grown-up Sheldon.
Zoe Perry plays Sheldon’s mother Mary, a role originated on The Big Bang Theory by Perry’s real-life mother Laurie Metcalf. Lance Barber is his father George Sr.
Critics generally liked the spin-off. Entertainment Weekly said Young Sheldon’s emphasis on family distinguished it from its parent show.
It’s that focus on family, with Sheldon as an oddity and an outsider but still loved, that makes Young Sheldon sweeter than The Big Bang Theory.
There’s no canned studio audience laughter here, or mockery of “nerdom” as some strange, foreign anthropologically fascinating character defect. Mercifully, as of now, there are no Bazingas, although it’s possible they’re saving that for the season finale.
“The new show is much more a traditional family-focused show, and the humour is accordingly cleaner,” noted the San Francisco Chronicle, which makes its post-8.30 scheduling here surprising.
Of course, TVNZ 2 no longer has a free evening weeknight slot for sitcoms now that reality rules.
And launching it off the back of MKR will ensure Young Sheldon’s an instant success and may discourage viewers from tuning into Three’s hot new 9pm drama, 9-1-1, which starts next Monday.
MKR, meanwhile, will screen two weeks behind the Australian broadcast; it goes to air tonight on Channel 7.
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January 29, 2018 at 5:18 pm
Doesn’t make any sense to delay the TV broadcast … They do this for most shows I watch. I rarely find anything fast tracked on TV hardly ever … We need laws surrounding delaying broadcasting for no viewer benefit.
Really Chris? You want a law to force a company to release a product to you when you want? And you’d want the same laws to force Apple et al to release their products in the NZ market as the same time as the US? I can just see the corporate reaction to that …
It makes sense doesn’t it? PS: Couldn’t care less about Apple.
No it absolutely does not make sense.
Oh well, it’s better than all this rubbish we have on. So well done but if we are to gain reality then make sure it’s not boring. But still we need better drama/ s i t c o m s we want our people to sit down to enjoy. We need as much ratings as possible.
Do you not prefer being released at the same time as USA? When things are delayed I lose interest and don’t bother with it anymore. I don’t see how you think it doesn’t make sense.
I’m all for fast-tracking but the government has things of actual importance to worry about and legislate rather than the scheduling of Young Sheldon.
Please do not misrepresent this as a defence of the broadcasters, I too believe that fast tracking should be standard, especially because of social media, at least TVNZ do fast track most shows through their on-demand service.
On-demand is a blurry mess which is why I dont use it. If it was 1080p then I might. And wasn’t talking about it, either. It’s the TV broadcast which is almost allways delayed with no explanation given.
Broadcast has always followed the summer/winter viewing cycle, that’s why all the major networks in the USA put there primetime shows over winter and the fillers over summer, now obviously we’re opposite and most of the viewing public isn’t curled up on the couch, they’re out at the beach, in the garden etc. It’s not profitable for our networks to show premium shows if no-one of watching.