The third trimester of 2012 is getting underway, which means more new shows for your perusal … this is New This Week: Oops, I Missed Last Week edition!
SATURDAY
Gardening enthusiasts can rejoice with yet another River Cottage series, this one titled RIVER COTTAGE: VEG EVERYDAY, coming to Saturday nights (Prime, 7.30pm), before Kelsey Grammer returns as sick Chicago mayor Tom Kane in the second season of BOSS (SoHo, 8.30pm).
SUNDAY
Betty White follows in the footsteps of Ashton Kutcher, setting up pranks on ordinary people in BETTY WHITE’S OFF THEIR ROCKERS (TV2, 7pm). Aussie comedy-drama OFFSPRING is back for its third season (One, 9.30pm), pairing up nicely with the second season of NOTHING TRIVIAL (One, 8.30pm) which started last weekend. Another show I missed last week: Season 2 of HELL ON WHEELS (SoHo, 8.30pm).
MONDAY
Nigel Latta hands in his parenting expert hat and goes back to investigating serial killers in BEYOND THE DARKLANDS (One, 8.30pm); UNFORGETTABLE moves to 9.30pm, which is the same time as AMERICAN HORROR STORY (Four, 9.30pm). Later, plastic surgery show NIP/TUCK gets a second go-round, starting with Season 1, repeating every weeknight (SoHo, 10.30pm).
TUESDAY
Light-hearted Australian comedy-drama TRICKY BUSINESS sees highly under-rated Kiwi actor Antony Starr back on our screens (Tv3, 8.30pm) and might be worth a watch … unless your reaction to the words “light-hearted Australian comedy-drama” was “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore”, in which case you might be more interested in ORBIT: EARTH’S EXTRAORDINARY JOURNEY (BBC Knowledge, 8.30pm).
WEDNESDAY
THE BLOCK NZ has the first of its final episodes (TV3, 7.30pm) while, on a different channel (obviously), Gavin & Stacey star Ruth Jones writes and performs in STELLA, a comedy about a 40-something woman trying to support her three kids in a quirky Welsh town (UKTV, 7.30pm). Later, THE KILLING makes its debut on free-to-air (TV3, 9.30pm), even though you might wonder why they’d bother, given the negative reviews and its cancellation earlier this year. Meanwhile, GAME OF THRONES also makes its much-discussed debut on free-to-air (Prime, 9.30pm), apparently cut to suit the BSA, even though reviewers at Throng.co.nz couldn’t spot the difference.
THURSDAY
THE BLOCK NZ finishes (TV3, 7.30pm) and MOTORWAY PATROL is back for another series (TV2, 8.00pm) but the big debut here is musical drama SMASH (TV3, 9.30pm), which is produced by Steven Spielberg and sounds like a kind of “Glee for adults”. Sadly, poor reviews took a lot of the gloss off this one.
FRIDAY
Just in case you have any faith that MTV can make an informed decision on anything music-related, you might like to check out the MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS (MTV, 11.00am) – which might well be the most irrelevant award ceremony of the year.
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