Clarke Gayford spends a day with the All Blacks' star first five-eighth. A thoroughly modern rugby player, Dan Carter talks about his underwear commercials and is seen in his Italian clothing store and being made up with fake sweat for a photo shoot. The flip side is an unwavering commitment to his craft, and a training and fitness regime that leaves Gayford gasping. Carter recalls his father building him goalposts in the backyard when he was a boy — and demonstrates the goal kicking technique that has made him the All Blacks’ leading points scorer.

Each episode of Extraordinary Kiwis shines a spotlight on a particular Kiwi and the activities that make them extraordinary. In this third season pilot, Clarke Gayford spends some time in Antarctica with scientist Victoria Metcalf, who investigates how fish survive in such extreme cold and their use as bellwethers for climate change. The "very Auckland" Gayford learns to fish amongst the seals. Dealing with hooks and bait in -20°C conditions is challenging for the self-described "sook in the cold", but Gayford proves pretty handy with a rod.

Jim Greenhough profiles Colin 'Pinetree' Meads — NZ rugby’s Player of the Century — who represented his country in 133 matches from 1957 to 1971. He spends a day with the 71-year-old All Black legend on the King Country farm he has worked all his adult life. Meads drenches sheep and muses on rugby as it was, its modern incarnation, and the way new farming methods have changed the provincial game which was once the sport’s backbone. Photographer Peter Bush recalls his years of following and shooting Meads who, he says, has aged like a fine wine.

Then reigning US Open champion Michael Campbell is the subject of this episode from the series profiling notable New Zealanders. The ‘slice of life’ follows the golfer on a trip home to compete in the 2006 New Zealand Open, and to raise funds for Ronald McDonald House (a charity helping kids suffering from cancer). On the way to Gulf Harbour, a low key Campbell reflects on his journey from Titahi Bay to beating Tiger Woods: discussing fame, being a role model for younger golfers, and — on a photo shoot draped in a kākahu (feather cloak) — being Māori. Campbell would retire in 2015.

Motor racing ace Scott Dixon is the subject of this episode from a series about notable New Zealanders. At 26, he is already an IndyCar champion but he’s subbing in here to help his team win a gruelling nine hour race in the heat at Salt Lake City and clinch a lower graded championship. The cameras are given plenty of trackside access to a relaxed and apparently unflappable Dixon who wears his 'Iceman' nickname with ease. While a mid-race excursion off the track fails to threaten his composure, his mother doesn’t fare quite so well from her weekend.

This documentary offers a glimpse into the life, art, and inimitable cheeky-as-a-kaka style of late Kiwi poet, Hone Tuwhare. In the Gaylene Preston-directed film, the man with "the big rubber face" (cheers Glenn Colquhoun) is observed at home, and travelling the country reading his work; polishing a new love poem; visiting old drinking haunts; reading to a hall full of entranced students; and expounding his distinctive views on everything from The Bible to Karl Marx's love life. He reads some of his best-known poems, including Rain and No Ordinary Sun.

Against the backdrop of Colonel Gaddafi’s attempted reconciliation with the West, this Pietra Brettkelly-directed doco captures a bizarre manifestation of the new international face of Libya: the predominantly Muslim country’s first beauty contest. In these excerpts, 24 unsure models arrive in Tripoli. As devout Muslim women watch on, and an English journalist struggles to contain incredulity, political realities emerge (eg military fatigues will be replacing bikinis). But will a requirement for contestants to wear Gaddafi t-shirts be a step too far for some?

Cannes is the town in France where Bergman meets bikinis, and the art of filmmaking meets the art of the deal. In 1975, a group of expat Kiwis managed to score interviews with some of the festival's emerging talents, indulging their own cinematic dreams in the process. Werner Herzog waxes lyrical on the trials and scars of directing; a boyish Steven Spielberg recalls the challenges of framing shots during Jaws; Martin Scorsese and Dustin Hoffman talk a gallon. Six years later interviewer Michael Heath's debut script The Scarecrow would be invited to Cannes.

The Cul de Sac presents an apocalyptic world where the adults have disappeared. In the opening of the first episode, Rose (Greta Gregory) realises something is wrong while leaving home. Meanwhile at the local high school, dictator in the making Doni (Simon Mead) refuses to let anyone inside. Also in this excerpt: Rose's sister (Molly Leishman) is in danger of having a medical emergency, Jack (Riverdale's KJ Apa) proves he isn't completely useless, and a dog goes rabid. Created by Stephen J Campbell (Amazing Extraordinary Friends), the sci-fi adventure spanned three seasons.

Veteran weatherman Jim Hickey sums up A Flying Visit at the start of the first episode: “We’re going to be visiting some of the more unusual and out of the way places, and I’ll be chatting with the locals and they can tell me what makes their little place tick”.  He touches his Cessna 182 down on NZ’s northernmost airstrip, meets a pig hunting nana, flies by the lighthouse and Ninety Mile Beach, then crosses to Russell to meet a boogie-boarding dog, a lawn-mowing goat, a uniquely-painted ute — and check out some history. Then it's a flying visit to giant kauri Tāne Mahuta and its kai cart.