ScreenScribe

Spectacular ratings for the NZ’s Got Talent finale barely breathed new life into the dead-on-arrival whodunit, Vera. TV One premiered Vera to dismal Friday night ratings mid-year and clearly hoped a bonanza audience for Talent would help to relaunch the Brenda Blethyn mystery series. But whereas Talent averaged 13.3% – 21.4% of the major demographics, [...]

NZ’s definitive free-to-air guide to what’s airing nightly in 1080i on the networks:   Saturday NZ’s Got Talent (TV One, 3.55, R) Gone Fishin’ (TV3, 5.30) Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook: Simple Pleasures (TV One, 7.00) On the Grill (TV3, 7.00) The Voice (TV2, 7.30) CSI: New York (TV3, 8.30, 5.1) CSI: Miami (TV3 9.30, 5.1) Pan Am (TV One, 9.35, 5.1) [...]

Nearly a year after it went to air on US TV, TV One at last will launch the HD conspiracy drama, Alcatraz. It will screen 8.30pm Wednesdays from December 5, on a double-bill with re-runs of Criminal Minds in its new 9.30 slot. Criminal Minds has been underperforming at 8.30, as have repeats of Person [...]

Season Finale: Glee (TV3, 7.30, 5.1, F) Graduation is finally here, as McKinley High’s class of 2012 looks to the past and present while contemplating the future. “It turned out to be a solid, at times fantastic, season-closer where some of Glee’s general weaknesses turned out to be strengths,” Time magazine said. But Rolling Stone thought otherwise: “With a [...]

TV One is axing HD whodunit Vera after only two weeks. The Brenda Blethyn vehicle will air 8.30pm Friday for the last time this week after appalling ratings for its premiere. Replacing it on July 20 will be an SD repeat of the movie, The Man Who Sued God, and the following week an Absolutely [...]

Sunday’s HD repeats of movies featuring two of TV’s funniest, Billy T James and Homer Simpson, were ratings also-rans. The Sunday Theatre dramatisation, Billy, drew about a third of last year’s viewership, averaging 4,2%-6.1% of key demographics, while The Simpsons Movie, which overlapped, drew 6.3%-7.3%. The Simpsons Movie started competitively opposite Mike & Molly but [...]

Series Premiere: Vera (TV One, 8.30) When a young boy is found murdered in his bath, surrounded by flowers, DCI Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate and soon is on the trail of a serial killer. “Brenda Blethyn played a shambolic middle-aged woman with a perpetually puzzled expression. She also happened to be a Chief Inspector [...]

New Zealand’s definitive free-to-air guide to what’s airing nightly in 1080i: Saturday Series premiere: The Bionic Vet (TV One, 5.25) TradeZone Gone Fishin’ (TV3, 5.30) Hyundai Country Calendar (TV One, 7.00) ITM Fishing Show (TV3, 7.00) Judy Bailey’s Australia (TV One, 8.30) Ice Road Truckers (TV3, 7.30, 5.1) CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (TV3, 8.30, 5.1) Movie: No Country for Old Men [...]

Cliff Curtis’ second consecutive TV drama flop, Missing, will debut in HD in the first week of July, along with the NZ version of The Block, Aussie reality newcomer Kings Cross ER and the latest UK whodunit series, Vera. Missing stars Ashley Judd as a former spy who uses her CIA skills to search for [...]