Die Hard 4.0 (TV3, 8.45, 5.1, R) Bruce Willis returns as John McClane, this time to thwart cyber-terrorists led by Justified’s Timothy Olyphant. One character’s description of the unstoppable hero is just as true of the movie: “There’s tough – and there’s stupid.” Cliff Curtis co-stars. (2007) ✭✭✭

Friends (TV2, 6.30, R) Ross visits Marcel, his monkey, in San Diego; Joey is stalked by a fan of his daytime drama. Chris Isaak and Brooke Shields guest star. ✭✭✭

Shortland Street (TV2, 7.00) Evan puts romance before friendship; Callum seizes a new challenge; Sarah fears Daniel has put his recovery at stake. ✭✭✭

Two and a Half Men (TV2, 7.30) Season premiere: Ashton Kutcher joins the cast as an Internet billionaire with a broken heart. ✭✭

2 Broke Girls (TV2, 8.00) Series premiere: Two waitresses in the same Brooklyn diner strike up an unlikely friendship. ✭✭✭

Winners & Losers (TV One, 8.30) The girls deal with the ramifications of the car accident. ✭✭

The Big Bang Theory (TV2, 8.30) Season premiere: Penny worries that she’s screwed things up permanently with her friends after her night with Raj, while Sheldon takes command of the paintball team. ✭✭✭✭

The Walking Dead (TV3, 9.00) Season premiere: On the highway out of Atlanta, Rick and his group are stopped by a threat unlike anything they have seen before and the group searches for someone who has gone missing. ✭✭✭✭

Harry’s Law (TV One, 9.30) Harry calls all hands on deck as the trial of the year officially begins; Adam preps Eric’s daughter for her pivotal testimony as Harry worries about Cassie’s impending cross-examination. ✭✭

Nikita (TV2, 10.30) Series return: If a US Senator agrees to help pass a bill that will continue to fund the Division, the agency will cover up the Senator’s secret affair — so Nikita attempts to expose the sex scandal. ✭✭

CSI (TV3, 12.00, 5.1, R, F) In the season 10-finale, the CSI’s lives are on the line as they close in on the elusive Dr Jekyll, and more than one member of the team may not live to see his capture. (Season 12 premieres 8.30 Monday.) ✭✭

Sky Movies Greats Premiere: Walking Tall (Sky 22, 8.30, 5.1) It’s impossible to imagine anyone involved with this doltish, thuggish slugfest walking tall afterwards. As an American critic quipped, it “exemplifies the dumbing down of stupidity.” Not so much a re-make as an “adaptation” of the 1973 action-thriller of the same name, it stars The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) as a returning Gulf war vet who uses a big stick to clean up his corrupted hometown. (2004) ✭

Au Revoir Charlie: Two and a Half Men (TV2, 7.30, R) Two-hour compilation of the last four episodes of season eight to feature Charlie Sheen, on the eve of his character's funeral in tomorrow night's season-nine premiere. ✭✭

Friends (TV2, 6.30, R) Ross’ ex and her lesbian lover tie the knot; Phoebe is possessed by the spirit of an 82-year-old massage client who dies in the middle of a session; Rachel’s mother visits. ✭✭✭✭

Shortland Street (TV2, 7.00) Vinnie smells a fake; Daniel’s dreams are denied; Phoenix is pipped at the post. ✭✭✭

The Secret Lives of Dancers (TV3, 7.30) Season premiere: a new celebrity boss signals massive changes for the national dance company and recruits Black Swan star Sergio Terrado. ✭✭✭✭

Missing Pieces (TV3, 8.00) Season premiere: a daughter who has waited 13 years to find out whether her father is the man she thinks he is meets him in Dubai. ✭✭✭

NCIS (TV3, 8.30, 5.1) Season premiere: Tony’s secret assignment for the SECNAV leads to an NCIS agent’s death. ✭✭

NCIS: Los Angeles (TV3, 9.30, 5.1) Series return: the agents travel to Mexico to find a box containing deadly material. ✭✭

Fringe (TV2, 2.45, R) After a cargo ship runs aground, the shoreline becomes littered with bodies hosting a giant squid-like creature. ✭✭✭✭

Avatar (TV3, 7.30, 5.1) If only the movie’s scenario — a futuristic Dances With Wolves – was as groundbreaking as the movie’s technology. Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver and Zoe Saldana star. (2009) ✭✭✭✭

Friends (TV2, 6.30, R) Monica encourages Fun Bobby  to stop drinking; Rachel begins dating a guy named Russ with an uncanny resemblance to Ross. ✭✭✭✭

Shortland Street (TV2, 7.00) Evan gives up on Ula; Wendy ups the ante; Gabrielle’s misjudgement puts a life in danger. ✭✭✭

Piha Rescue (TV One, 7.30) The Piha Big Wave Classic is underway; a surfboat ends up on the rocks; a surfer receives a serious head injury; a lifeguard breaks his foot. ✭✭

Rapid Response (TV One, 8.00) A teenager’s artery is cut in mysterious circumstances; a fishing trip ends in disaster; Intensive Care paramedic Ian Rex struggles to prevent a man falling into a deep coma. ✭✭

Criminal Minds (TV One, 8.30)  Survivors of a high school massacre return to remember the event ten years later, but the BAU team is called in when a new killer with a similar style targets the survivors. ✭✭

Person of Interest (TV One, 9.30) When the number comes up on a promising young doctor, Reese and Finch must unravel the threat while she’s on-call and during after hours. ✭✭

Nurse Jackie (TV3, 11.35, 5.1, R) Jackie breaks several rules and regulations to help a 10-year-old girl caring for her lupus-stricken mother; Mrs. Akalitus accidentally tasers herself; O’Hara treats Zoey to a meal at a four-star restaurant. ✭✭✭✭

Hank (TV2, 12.15, R) ✭✭

Hellcats (TV2, 5.30) Savannah is blown away when Charlotte reveals the identity of her baby’s father; Hellcats learn they and Memphis Christian have something in common. (Screens 4pm from next week.) ✭✭✭

The War at Home (TV2, 6.30, R) Dave isn’t happy when Vicky invites Taye’s family over for a barbecue, and Taye’s father mistakes one of Dave’s comments as racist. ✭✭✭✭

North (TV One, 7.00, R) Marcus Lush finds New Zealand’s only feral donkeys surprisingly close to Auckland and ends up talking to his dad. ✭✭✭✭

Movie: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (TV2, 7.00, R) The fourth instalment not only puts hairs on the boy wizard’s chest but also raises them on the back of your neck. (2005) ✭✭✭✭

Movie: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (TV3, 7.00, 5.1) This threequel may be on thin ice story-wise — the gang unearths a lost world after Sid’s snatched by a dinosaur — but the animation and humour remain lively and inventive, especially the ingeniously Looney Tunes-ish Scrat sequences. ✭✭✭✭

Movie: Epic Movie (TV3, 9.00, 5.1, R) Low-budget, lowbrow blockbuster movies spoof from six of the Scary Movie scribes that yet again proves no one ever went broke underestimating the public’s taste. And just when you thought the late David Carradine’s legacy couldn’t get any worse … ✭

Sky Movies Premiere: Black Swan (Sky 20, 8.30, 5.1) Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Double meets Swan Lake in this overwrought but riveting psychological drama about a ballerina on the brink of a breakdown. Has landing the dual role of the White Swan and the Black Swan in Swan Lake made the already neurotic, insecure Nina (Natalie Portman) delusional? Or are her worst fears about her director (Vincent Cassel), rival (Mila Kunis) and stage mother (Barbara Hershey) justified? Portman’s Oscar-winning turn and Black Swan’s startling visual effects are a must to see but can’t disguise storytelling that’s as unhinged as the heroine. Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler) directs. (2010) ✭✭✭

TradeZone Gone Fishin’ (R)/Rheem Outdoors With Geoff (TV3, 5.00/5.30) ✭✭✭

Movie: The Accidental Husband (TV2, 8.30) Griffin Dunne (Practical Magic) directed this hopelessly contrived romantic-comedy about an agony aunt talk show host (Uma Thurman) who discovers, on the eve of her wedding, she’s already inadvertently tied the knot with someone else as the victim of a vengeful prank. Rightly observed The Observer: “The feeble plot of this dull film depends on a flimsy plotting device that a single phone call or letter from a lawyer would have solved overnight.” Colin Firth and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Grey’s Anatomy) co-star. (2008) ✭✭

Winners & Losers (TV One, 11.15, R)  Bec and Doug’s serious car accident leaves Sophie struggling with her feelings; Jenny tries to come terms with Rhys being gay. ✭✭

Sky Movies Greats Premiere: Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (Sky 22, 5.05, 5.1) Happily, the title of this half-baked sequel about feuding dads hasn’t proved to be the harbinger of a franchise starring Steve Martin as the father who never knows best. Adam Shankman (Hairspray, Bedtime Stories) directs; American Pie’s Eugene Levy, Bonnie Hunt and Carmen Electra co-star. (2005) ✭✭

The Graham Norton Show (TV3, 9.10) Madonna discusses everything from her upcoming album and new movie to her supposed rivalry with Lady Gaga. Unlike previous interviews, where she referred to comparisons of herself to Gaga as “reductive”, Madonna compliments the pop princess and says they even share a similar sense of humour. “When I first saw her I was really impressed by her and she was cool. She did remind me of me back in the day.” ✭✭✭✭

Friends (TV2, 6.30) It’s Christmas and Monica tries tipping with cookies rather than cash, with mixed results; Phoebe tries to track down her real father. ✭✭✭

Shortland Street (TV2, 7.00) Murray lays down the gauntlet, Gabrielle has an emotional breakthrough, and Ula faces her fear of ostracism. ✭✭✭

Come Fly With Me (TV3, 10.10, 5.1, R) Immigration Officer Ian Foot pulls in Taaj for questioning as part of a random security check; how far Fearghal is prepared to go to get nominated for Steward of the Year? ✭✭

The Vampire Diaries (TV2, 10.30) While in Chicago with Klaus, Stefan runs into a vampire from his past, someone still interested in him after decades who will bring danger to Mystic Falls. ✭✭✭ 

Human Target (TV2, 11.30) Ames tries to conceal a secret from Winston; Guerrero and Chance try to conceal a secret from Ilsa. ✭✭✭

Numb3rs (TV3, 12.30, 5.1) Don helps a veteran FBI agent track an elusive con man who worms his way into companies and then steals millions. ✭✭

CSI: Miami (TV3, 1.30, 5.1, R)  When Horatio’s ex-girlfriend is killed in an explosion, the team looks within their own department to find the killer. ✭✭

Sky Movies Greats Premiere: Brokeback Mountain (Sky 22, 8.30, 5.1) Mournful, majestic ode to the call of those faraway hills for two cowboys who gotta’ do what gay men gotta’ do. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal play lonesome drovers whose campfire friendship unexpectedly spills over into a forbidden love that haunts them – and their families – for the rest of their repressed lives. Director Ang Lee acutely contrasts the freedom of Wyoming’s spectacular vistas with the protagonists’ trapped desperation while Ledger and Gyllenhaal turn in performances just as breathtaking. (2005) ✭✭✭✭

It will premiere on Sky’s premium drama channel in April, along with season two of Game of Thrones, season five of Mad Men and the miniseries, The Pillars of the Earth.

The Killing

Pillars will screen here nearly two years after its US debut but Killing, Mad Men and Thrones will be on air here within weeks of their US telecasts.

March, meanwhile, will see this month’s debuts, like tonight’s Boss, next week’s StrikeBack and Luck, which starts on February 13, continue their runs while Mildred Pierce will re-run on Sunday nights.

SoHo also will air the Paradise Lost trilogy, about the wrongful conviction of the West Memphis Three, on Wednesdays from March 28 (peculiarly, the third instalment, Purgatory, will have its premiere on February 24).

Other HBO docos that month will include Hot Coffee (March 30), which screened last year on the NZ Film Festival circuit, and Game Change, an insider’s account of the John McCain-Sarah Palin 2008 presidential campaign that will air on March 23, two weeks after its US debut.

SoHo will dig much deeper into the vault for its SoHo Cinema slot, however, going as far back as 2001 for the Rosa Parks drama, Boycott (March 2); 2004 for Iron Jawed Angels, which dramatises the women’s suffrage movement (March 16); and 2006 for Bernard and Doris (March 9), which dramatises the relationship between tobacco queen Doris Duke and her gay butler (Susan Sarandon and Ralph Fiennes star).

Box Set Weekends include Camelot (March 3-4), seasons two of How to Make It In America (March 10) and seven of Weeds (March 11), The Corner (March 17), Five Days (March 18), and seasons four of Mad Men (March 24-25) and one of Hell on Wheels (March 31-April 1).

It’s looking for a regular TV columnist for easily the country’s best TV/tech lift-out, The Box (full disclosure: I’m among its contributors).

Box editor Will Harvie is inviting freelance opinion writers to watch part one of Downton Abbey and file 500 words on it, by 9am Friday, along with CVs and story clips, to: will.harvie@press.co.nz

“The ideal candidate will be zealous watcher and vivacious writer who is keen to develop a national profile through Fairfax syndication,” he says.

“There may be occasional celebrity and feature writing opportunities. Proven deadline beaters preferred but I often work with inexperienced writers.

“Familiarity with Canterbury and the South Island sensibilities is helpful, but home location doesn’t matter (indeed Auckland may be an advantage).”

The good news about the Christmas special, which out-rated perennial festive crowdpleaser EastEnders in the UK, is it’s said to be much better than the second season.

Even better news is Universal Pictures NZ plans to release it on Blu-ray, for $35, on February 9, the day after Prime’s SD broadcast of part two (in the UK it aired as a movie).

Friends (TV2, 6.30, R) Ross must choose between Rachel and Julie. So Joey and Chandler help him to make a list of the pros and cons of each woman. ✭✭✭✭

Shortland Street (TV2, 7.00) Good advice wins Chris brownie points; Ula’s secret is becoming a burden; Wendy fails to be a team player. ✭✭✭

Lie to Me (TV3, 11.40, 5.1, R) Cal’s ex-wife, an assistant US attorney, hires him to get to the bottom of an arson case in which the victim accuses a childhood friend, who’s now a famous TV reporter, of burning down his house. Jennifer Beals guest stars. ✭✭

Diplomatic Immunity (TV One, 11.45, R) Comedy about the misadventures at the consulate of The Most Royal Kingdom of Feausi. ✭✭✭

Mental (TV3, 12.40, 5.1) A patient returns with worsening OCD and Tourette’s syndrome, and his wife pushes for unproven brain surgery, leading the team to suspect that the wife has her own issues. ✭✭

Sky Movies Greats Premiere: Man in the Iron Mask (Sky 22, 8.30, 5.1) The best Musketeers romp yet brings Athos, Porthos and Aramis out of retirement to challenge not only the corrupt King Louis XIV but also the monarch’s most loyal lieutenant, their old mate D’Artagnan. Throw in a good twin-bad twin twist, some earthy humour and high-spirited high adventure, and you have a swashbuckler to die for. Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Gerard Depardieu and Gabriel Byrne star. (1998) ✭✭✭✭

Underbelly: Infiltration (TV3, 9.15)

Friends (TV2, 6.30, R) A drunk Rachel dials Ross and reveals her feelings for him on his answering machine; Monica finds work as Chandler’s personal trainer; Phoebe’s new boyfriend won’t sleep with her. ✭✭✭✭

Shortland Street (TV2, 7.00) Brooke struggles to handle her hurt; Daniel fights the system; Chris fears all is lost. ✭✭✭

The Biggest Bang: The Big Bang Theory Marathon (TV2, 7.30, R) The final four episodes of season four. Next week: season two premieres. ✭✭✭✭

Winners & Losers (TV One, 8.30) A serious car accident for Bec and Doug leaves Sophie struggling with her feelings; Jenny tries to come terms with Rhys being gay. ✭✭

Movie: Underbelly: Infiltration (TV3, 9.15) Posing as a shady art dealer, Victorian detective Colin McLaren (Animal Kingdom’s Sullivan Stapleton) infiltrates the Australian branch of the Calabrian Mafia. Kiwis continue to infiltrate this franchise: Roy Billing reprises his Aussie Bob role from Underbelly: The Mr Asia Story and Marshall Napier’s daughter, Jessica, co-stars as Stapleton’s sexy sidekick, prompting one critic to quip: “Half the budget was probably blown on Jude’s lingerie, but Napier ensured there was more to remember than her lacework.” (2011) ✭✭✭✭

Harry’s Law (TV One, 9.30) While charges against Harry are dropped, the DA orders the police to harass her and plant evidence. ✭✭

The Walking Dead (TV2, 10.30, R) Season finale: Rick and the group are allowed into the CDC by a strange doctor. But all is not what it seems in their new-found haven. Next week: season two premieres. ✭✭✭✭

CSI (TV3, 11.50, 5.1, R) The CSI team must investigate one of their own when Langston is accused by a former colleague of being part of the Dr. Jekyll murders. ✭✭