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Season Premiere: The Closer (TV One, 11.05) When Brenda’s squad investigates the quadruple murder of a family, she accidentally stumbles into the middle of an FBI investigation that may have been a factor in the homicide. While the fifth season first aired three years ago in the US (and was released here on DVD 18 months ago), its [...]

TV2′s HD hit Go Girls is losing its lead as Tuesday’s 8.30pm front-runner. Last night’s episode saw it neck-and-neck in the 25-54 demographic for the first time with HD rivals on TV One and TV3. It barely won the slot with 10.8%, compared with 10.7% for Nature’s Great Events and 10.3% for NCIS. Indeed, TV [...]

Series Highlight: NCIS (TV3, 8.30, 5.1) Gibbs and Fornell team up when their mutual ex-wife — and running gag source — Diane (guest star Melinda McGraw) calls to say that her husband was kidnapped. The AV Club thought this “probably the best episode of NCIS I’ve ever seen mainly because of McGraw”, who was a fixture on Hank (which TV2 is re-running [...]

TV3′s NCIS posted its best ratings of the season Tuesday, when it narrowed the gap with TV2′s top-rating Go Girls and the final of TV One’s popular Frozen Planet. Both of the TVNZ hits slipped with 25-54 year-olds, allowing NCIS, which guest starred ex-Charlie’s Angel Cheryl Ladd, to average 8.6% of this demographic. It still [...]

SoHo Highlight: Hell on Wheels (Sky 10, 9.30, 5.1) The Cheyenne derail a train; Durant dispatches Cullen and Elam on a mission of vengeance; Lily struggles to find her place in Hell on Wheels. The title of episode eight, Derailed, sums up its critical reception. The AV Club: “Hell On Wheels sometimes seems deranged. That’s what I liked best about [...]

NZ TV’s best-kept secret at last has been discovered. Tuesday’s episode of The Secret Lives of Dancers still finished third in its slot but posted its best ratings of the season. It averaged 5.6% of 25-54 year-olds, 5.2% of 18-49, 4.4% of 18-39 and 6.5% of household shoppers. HD rival The Middle danced circles around [...]

SoHo Highlight: Strike Back (Sky 10, 8.30, 5.1) In Darfur, the kidnapping of an English doctor forces Stonebridge and Scott into an alliance with Gerald Crawford, a global-arms dealer with ties to Latif. US critics reckon this shoot-’em-up has one of the best credits sequences of the 2011 season. As TV.com said: “I don’t know a thing about Strike [...]

Season two of The Almighty Johnsons debuted Wednesday with a 25-54 rating well below its season-one average of  9.8%. It drew 6.2% of this demographic, and while season two is in an earlier slot, the competition is much tougher: TV2′s The Big Bang Theory (12.3%) and Happy Endings (7.9%). Such is the pulling power of Big [...]

New Zealand’s definitive guide to what’s airing nightly free-to-air in 1080i Saturday The Secret Lives of Dancers (TV3, 4.30, R) Rheem Outdoors With Geoff (TV3, 5.00, R) Keeping Up With the Joneses (TV One, 7.00) Terra Nova (TV3, 7.30, 5.1) Movie: Big Momma’s House 2 (TV3, 8.30, 5.1, R) Winners & Losers (TV One, 10.30, R) Sunday Hellcats (TV2, 4.00) Pretty [...]

SoHo Highlight: Strike Back (Sky 10, 8.30, 5.1) Scott and Stonebridge try to thwart Connolly’s ruthless plan to deliver ATAT’s WMD device to Latif. If you haven’t yet discovered this action-packed series, The Huffington Post has a succinct recap of the first three episodes of what it calls “one of the most explosive shows on television — really. [...]