TV Highlights

Mark Twain

Arts Channel – Tuesday 20 November, 8.00pm

A film by Ken Burns, profiling the remarkable life and times of America’s greatest writer, Samuel Clemens, known and beloved to the world as Mark Twain. It follows his rise from a hardscrabble youth in Missouri, his wanderings as a Mississippi riverboat pilot, Nevada prospector, California journalist, and as humorist on the lecture circuit. Due to his tours of Europe, Australia and other parts of the globe he became, by the time of his death, one of the first truly worldwide celebrities. Mark Twain will reintroduce millions to this compelling yet contradictory genius, perhaps the only man who could say with some justification, “I am not an American, I am the American.” Nearly three years in the making, the film draws from more than 63 hours worth of material. There is stunning cinematography from the places important to Twain’s story and thousands of archival photographs of the man who called himself “the most conspicuous person on the planet”. Fascinating insights are culled from nearly 20 interviews with some of the nation’s leading writers and top Twain scholars, including Arthur Miller, William Styron, Russell Banks, Ron Powers, Hal Holbrook, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Laura Skandera-Trombley and Jocelyn Chadwick. Actor Keith David, who was the voice of JAZZ, is the narrator. The skilled character actor Kevin Conway breathes a fresh life into Twain’s own words.

“Burns doesn’t just recount the colourful artist’s life story – he makes it come alive.” – Entertainment Weekly

“MARK TWAIN does justice to an American treasure.” – People Magazine

“By the end you feel as if you know both Sam Clemens and Mark Twain.” – The Boston Globe

Channel Premiere: Model Prisoners

Crime & Investigation Network – Monday 19 November, 7.30pm

The search for Brazil’s most beautiful female prisoner. This film goes behind bars in a Brazilian female prison where inmates compete in a beauty pageant for title of Miss Penitentiary. Filming inside the prison, the women reveal how they became prisoners, what drove them to commit the crimes they did and why they were interested in being judged on their physical beauty.

Channel Premiere: Model Prisoners

Crime & Investigation Network – Monday 19 November, 7.30pm

The search for Brazil’s most beautiful female prisoner. This film goes behind bars in a Brazilian female prison where inmates compete in a beauty pageant for title of Miss Penitentiary. Filming inside the prison, the women reveal how they became prisoners, what drove them to commit the crimes they did and why they were interested in being judged on their physical beauty.

NZTV Premiere: Human Body Month: Inside Extraordinary Humans: Obesity

National Geographic – Sunday 18 November, 11.30pm

Take a look inside the bodies of those who fall into the stratospheric weight class known as “morbidly obese”. Investigate the astonishing internal mechanics and unusual chemistry of Francis Serrano, who hopes surgery can save him from his runaway appetite, now that he’s ballooned to over 500 pounds. Kate Meyers, on the other hand, suffers a staggering obesity problem caused by Cushing’s Syndrome, a rare condition that causes people to suddenly pile on pounds without over-eating. Then meet two men who have to work at gaining weight – sumo wrestlers. Probing morbid obesity from the inside out, see how this condition makes people not just super-sized, but also extraordinary versions of the human machine.

NZTV Premiere: Human Body Month: Obese At 16

National Geographic – Sunday 18 November, 10.30pm

In the past two decades, the rate of teen obesity in America has more than doubled, putting the problem at epidemic proportions with an estimated 10 million teenagers classified as obese. At age 16, Brandon Bennett weighs 411 pounds and his body is a walking time bomb. Due to his morbid obesity, the Houston teenager suffers from a range of serious medical problems that threaten to greatly reduce his lifespan, including severe sleep apnea, high blood pressure and a risk of diabetes. After trying numerous diets with no success, Brandon decides to pursue a gastric bypass operation to help him lose the excess weight. The surgery is rarely performed on teens because the risks are extremely high, so finding a surgeon to operate is a challenge. Follow Brandon over the course of a year as he battles to get the surgery he desperately needs, undergoes the bypass operation and experiences post-operation lifestyle changes.

NZTV Premiere: Human Body Month: Speedeating

National Geographic – Sunday 18 November, 9.30pm

Professional speed eaters are the ultimate gluttons. From hot dog contests to oyster-gulping gorge-fests, these events are made for the oversized appetite. But the true champions of the eating circuit are rarely overweight. One of the top five eaters in the world is a hundred-pound woman. No one knows how she is able to defeat men twice her size. Now, for the first time, doctors examine a competitive eater’s digestive system to see if the secrets of speed eating can shed any light on cures for ailments like indigestion. These rare stomachs may also hold the secrets to combating obesity and weight gain for the rest of the population.

NZ TV Premiere: 100 Million Carats

Documentary Channel – Sunday 18 November, 9.00pm

The glittering story of the Oppenheimer Diamond Dynasty, the family which has controlled De Beers for four generations and dominates the world diamond market.

When Ernst Oppenheimer immigrated to South Africa in 1902, he never dreamed that just a few years later he would be at the head of the most powerful cartel in the world, the De Beers company. Since that time, four generations of the Oppenheimer clan have ruled the global diamond market. Estimates of their private worth vary between four and six million dollars. The legendary rise of Ernst Oppenheimer and his son Harry, who built up the company to its current size, has been based on sophisticated strategies to defend the jewel cartel against powerful resistance and to overcome ideological bulwarks. At the height of the Cold War, De Beers made lucrative deals with the communist USSR, at that time a sworn enemy of the apartheid state. The USA was easily conquered with the slogan, ‘A Diamond is Forever’. The company was also involved in the turn to anti-apartheid policies; after the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, Nelson Mandela despite pressure from the ANC decided against nationalising De Beers. Today, Grandson Nicky and great-grandson Jonathan Oppenheimer run the company together and from their London sales office control the global trade in these precious gems. The Oppenheimers live a quiet life in their castle-like family home, Brenthurst in Johannesburg. This film as been one of the rare occasions that they have given interviews.

NZTV Premiere: Sharkman

Animal Planet – Sunday 18 November, 10.30pm

A man claims he can communicate with the world’s wildest predator – the Great White shark. Michael Rutzman wants to put his knowledge of sharks to the ultimate test with an extraordinary experiment: placing a Great White into a trance-like immobile state and then placing a large syringe into its lateral line to retrieve a blood sample. All of this is done while free-diving in the open sea. Mark believes Great Whites are not the mindless killers we make them out to be. He feels they are smart and sensitive and he can communicate with them in a profoundly new way.

World Premiere: Thanks For Listening: The History Of Australian Radio

History Channel – Sundays from 18 November, 7.30pm

Exclusive to The History Channel, this 5 part series chronicles the greatest moments in Australian radio and the impact radio has had on the lives of everyday Australians since its introduction in the 1920′s. The series will include everything from the early days of radio dramas and comedies, the success of the radio quiz genre as well as the emergence of sport, music and talkback radio. Thanks For Listening – The History of Australian Radio will feature a cavalcade of Australia’s most high profile radio personalities including – “Golden Tonsils” John Laws, sports commentator Johnny Tapp; Howard Sattler; Bert Newton; Ray Hadley; John Blackman; Wayne Roberts and the iconic Alan Jones. The series delivers actual recordings of great moments in radio, together with the in–depth interviews with stars past and present.

NZTV Premiere: Discovery Atlas – India Revealed

Discovery Channel – Sunday 18 November, 7.30pm

By following the lives of eight people across India, viewers learn about the hopes and dreams of the people and the heart of the country. India is a nation of immensely diverse history, the home of at least three of the world’s great religions and a whole sequence of empires and states, each with their own spectacular architectural and cultural legacies. And in consequence, this can seem a nation of chaos and almost overwhelming contrasts, most dramatically between the rich and poor. India is a country that seems happy to accept and integrate the lowliest beggar into a society that also includes the most affluent prince. But it also appears to be a country of great tolerance, where, in the main, each individual is allowed to pursue his faith and ambitions as he or she sees fit. DISCOVERY ATLAS: India Revealed will strive to capture all those shifts and changes, tensions and conflicts, setting them against a backdrop of perhaps the most diverse, visually spectacular and seemingly chaotic culture and landscape of any nation on earth.