The Pacific: In The Wake of Captain Cook

Season 1

2018 · 6 episodes · 4h 44m in all

Episodes

1. 

   1. Endeavour and Tahiti

   27 Aug 2018 · 47 min

   On the 250th anniversary of Cook leaving Plymouth, Sam Neill visits Tahiti in the first of six episodes to follow Cook’s journey around the Pacific, and hears from Tahitians about what Cook means 250 years on. Sam encounters ardent enthusiasts and practitioners of Tahiti’s vibrant culture. Some of the traditions are old, some new and when lost, he learns, the Tahitians are happy to make them up.

2. 

   2. Endeavour and New Zealand

   3 Sept 2018 · 48 min

   Speaking with historians, activists, artists and locals, Sam delves into a deep history of trade, tradition and turbulent conflict. To his surprise Maori oral memories of Tupaia are more strong and vivid than those of Cook. Reconnecting with lost Polynesian history was far more potent than awe at the foreign goblins.

3. 

   3. Endeavour and Australia

   10 Sept 2018 · 47 min

   Sam travels from Botany Bay up the east coast to Cooktown, learning about a country that far from being nobodies’ land was comprehensively inhabited by a well established culture.

4. 

   4. Resolution and the Great Southern Continent

   17 Sept 2018 · 47 min

   Sam visits New Zealand, Tonga, Vanuatu, and Norfolk Island before completing one of Cook’s unfinished ambitions by touching down on Antarctica. For Sam this episode, in a much more intimate way, mirrors what many consider Cook’s greatest achievement, the breadth and extent of the second voyage.

5. 

   5. Resolution and the Northwest Passage

   24 Sept 2018 · 48 min

   Sam Neill continues to follow the path of the Resolution, again via through New Zealand and Tonga onto Canada and Alaska, experiencing the Pacific as never before.

6. 

   6. Resolution and Hawaii

   1 Oct 2018 · 47 min

   Back in Australia Sam views an unfinished tapa waistcoat abandoned by Elizabeth Cook after his death – a poignant memento. A larger than life stainless steel sculpture of the man by Micheal Parakowhai is the focus of Sam’s reflections on Cook. Finally on an uninhabited islet in mid- Pacific Sam concludes his journey from being a ‘mere actor’ when he set out to becoming ‘a man of the Pacific.’