Two Lovers (TV One, 11.30) Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow star in an acclaimed Brooklyn-set romantic drama about a bachelor torn between the family friend his parents wish he would marry and his beautiful but volatile new neighbour. "For a filmmaker who has made his reputation with such crime thrillers as Little Odessa and The Yards, James Gray reveals an unexpected gift for the mysteries of romance," the Wall Street Journal said while The Hollywood Reporter fell for the leads: "Phoenix plays the romantic lead with great intelligence and enormous charm, making his character's conflict utterly believable, and Paltrow positively glows as the radiant shiksa who dazzles him.” ✭✭✭✭

The Secret Lives of Dancers (TV3, 4.30, R) A new celebrity boss signals massive changes for the national dance company and recruits Black Swan star Sergio Terrado. ✭✭✭✭

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

Keeping Up With the Joneses (TV One, 7.00) Little Milton has his first day at school and Cristina is nervous about how he will mix after being the only child at Coolibah; Milton demonstrates the finer points of bull castration. ✭✭✭

Desperate Housewives (TV2, 10.20, R) Repeat of last year’s season finale on the eve of Monday’s season-eight premiere: the ladies welcome Susan back to Wisteria Lane with a progressive dinner party – which leads to a shocking murder. ✭✭

Winners & Losers (TV One, 10.30, R) The girls deal with the ramifications of the car accident. ✭✭

Sky Movies Greats Premiere: American Gangster (Sky 22, 8.30, 5.1) Who would have thought Serpico and Superfly would wind up best friends? Yet that’s what happened when the Big Apple’s most incorruptible cop, Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), took on ‘70s Harlem drug boss Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington). Their bizarre relationship is just one amazing aspect of this dazzling, albeit disputed, true-life dramatisation of how a family-run empire that was coining $1 million a day from heroin was built on the back of the Vietnam war – and unravelled by an uncharacteristic flight of fancy and hubris on Lucas’ part. The Shadow Line’s Chiwetel Ejiofor co-stars. (2007) ✭✭✭✭

The Bruce Willis franchise opened modestly, facing the last quarter-hour of The Big Bang Theory, but climbed from 6.1% of 25-54 year-olds to peak at 10.8%.

It averaged 8.3% over two-and-half hours compared to Dead’s 8%.

With TV2’s target audience, 18-39 year-olds, Dead averaged 7.1% and Die Hard 7.3%.

But Dead dominated among 18-49s (8.2% vs 7.5%) and household shoppers (10.9% vs 10%).

The first Two and a Half Men episode with Ashton Kutcher was the most popular show of the night, averaging 18.9%-22.5% across the key demographics.

Newcomer 2 Broke Girls was almost as big a hit, averaging 18.8%-20.9% while the return of Big Bang rated 16%-18.4%.

The movie-length premiere of Dead roughly drew half the viewership of lead-in Big Bang.

TV One’s HD options, Winners & Losers and Harry’s Law, could muster only 6.5% and 4.7% respectively of the network’s target audience, 25-54s.

Saturday

The Secret Lives of Dancers (TV3, 4.30, R)

Bones (TV3, 8.30, 5.1) Season premiere: The team investigates the death of a woman with a history of amnesia, disappearances and head trauma whose corpse is found in a shallow grave. "Tonight's episode is a good start," Newsday said. "But wait till the baby comes ... What fans will obviously witness this season is a metamorphosis: Bones' brick-and-mortar edifice of logic begins to crumble, as the world of babies and equally needy fathers intrudes. It's a tricky balancing act for a show that depends on the reliability of those bricks and mortar." ✭✭✭

Friends (TV2, 6.30, R) Rachel and Monica compete for the affections of Jean-Claude Van Damme after meeting him on a movie set. Julia Roberts also guest stars. ✭✭✭✭

Shortland Street (TV2, 7.00) Daniel makes a plea for his future; Jasmine starts her own green scheme; Hunter dances with his demons. ✭✭✭

Lie to Me (TV3, 11.15, 5.1, R) The Lightman Group gets embroiled in the controversial case of a policeman who shot a potentially innocent teenager. ✭✭

Crash Course (TV2, 11.30) Season premiere: Greg Murphy is back behind the wheel and putting his driving skills on the line, with real-time tests and crazy stunts which show what really happens when your car gets out of control. ✭✭✭

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

Mental (TV3, 12.10, 5.1) Jack treats a suicidal 16-year-old girl who has had a dark secret hidden from her since birth. ✭✭

It averaged 10.1% of TV3’s target audience, 25-54 year-olds, versus 9.3% for TV One’s Criminal Minds and 7.3% for TV2’s SD movie, Sweet Home Alabama.

With TV2’s core viewership, 18-39 year-olds, the race was much tighter: Avatar averaged 8.6% and Alabama 8%.

Avatar also won the 18-49 contest but lost sharply to both Alabama and Criminal Minds in the household shoppers stakes.

Despite its blockbuster status, Avatar rated only marginally better for TV3 than last week’s re-run of The Transporter.

Clearly, the 3D sensation’s overexposure at the box office and on Blu-ray limited its 2D appeal on the small screen.

Earlier in the evening, TV One’s Piha Rescue and Rapid Response were up slightly on last week’s 25-54 ratings, with 8.3% and 8.8% respectively, while Person of Interest was down two-and-a-half points to just 5.3% of 25-54s, which suggests viewers are quickly losing interest in this gimmicky procedural.

On Sunday night, TV3’s HD premiere of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs trampled TV2’s HD re-run of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in most demographics.

Only among HHS were the two neck-and-neck, with Ice Age averaging 8.8% and Potter 8.5%.

Viewership largely halved for TV3’s second HD movie of the night, a repeat of Epic Movie, while TV2’s Saturday HD movie, The Accidental Husband, was largely out-rated by TV One’s HSBC Sevens World rugby coverage, winning only with HHS.

The Sevens also took the wind out of Graham Norton’s Madonna show on Friday, with the chat king’s ratings dropping several points across the board, while Underbelly’s return on Wednesday, with the HD telemovie, Infiltration, barely out-gunned TV One’s Harry’s Law for 25-54 honours but not TV2’s Wilson Dixon: The NZ Tour, which was twice as popular.

Tuesday’s Night at the Museum 2 also was a flop for 3, averaging only 5.1% of 25-54s, 4.5% of 18-49s, 3.5% of 18-39s and 5.9% of HHS to finish third in its slot.

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) ✭

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) ✭✭✭

Saturday

Each averaged 7.6% of the network’s target audience, 25-54 year-olds, compared to 10.6% for Piha’s premiere two weeks ago and 12.2% for Rapid’s.

TV One’s HD crime drama, Criminal Minds, also has slipped, from 11.9% of 25-54s for the premiere to 10.2%.

But it was still competitive with TV3’s HD re-run of The Transporter that helped the network to win the night.

Transporter dominated most of the demographics, although TV One’s new HD stablemate for Criminal Minds, Person of Interest, is maintaining its initial popularity, with 7.9% of 25-54s (versus 9.6% for Transporter’s second hour).

TV3’s HD premiere of Monsters vs Aliens on Sunday out-rated TV2’s SD re-run of Wall-E in all of the key demos except household shoppers with kids and across the board was more popular than TV One’s North/Ocean Giants combo.

TV3’s HD re-run of Meet Dave didn’t fare as well, with TV2’s SD movie, Van Wilder Party Liaison, easily beating it.

Saturday’s Keeping Up With the Joneses would struggle to keep up with the competition if it was stronger than TV2’s Wipeout and TV3’s umpteenth re-run of Everybody Loves Raymond while the return of The Graham Norton Show on Friday again helped to make it a winning night for TV3 (as did The X Factor Australia’s resurgence against TV2’s American Idol).

And fans of TV3’s excellent HD thriller, Kidnap and Ransom, will be disappointed to learn the network isn’t buying the second series.

Although it decided not to before airing the mini-series, the justification was borne out by Thursday’s conclusion drawing less than half the viewership of TV2’s Embarrassing Bodies/Kitchen Nightmares combo. It also trailed TV One’s Big Fat Gypsy Weddings and Absolutely Fabulous.