This edition of the NFU magazine series first travels to Waiouru to observe the NZ Army’s elite Special Air Service, in the year it was established. The soldiers undergo bush exercises, an obstacle course and a mock ambush, training for deployment to Malaya. Then it’s up to Auckland Zoo to meet husky litters destined for an Antarctic Adventure with Hillary and the Trans-Antarctic Expedition (the dogs are related to Captain Scott’s huskies). And finally, it’s further north to go shark fishing for “a day on the Kaipara” in a segment directed by Maurice Shadbolt.

Feature film The Catch follows Scotsman Brian (Nicol Munro) – a hard up builder under pressure from his ex – and his mate Wiremu (Billy’s Tainui Tukiwaho). The two vie for a $50,000 kitty in a Kaipara fishing contest. A potentially prize-winning snapper bites the hook, only it is three days early. Inspired by a true story, The Catch was written by Glenn Wood and directed by advertising veteran Simon Mark-Brown, who billed it as a "comedic eco-drama". The self-funded film was shot over 11 days with the help of locals; it debuted in New Zealand cinemas in summer of 2017. 

Aotearoa is the last big land mass on earth discovered and settled by people (orthodox history suggests Māori arrived around 1280). Directed by Mark McNeill, this Greenstone TV documentary examines controversial evidence put forward to claim an alternative pre-Māori settlement — from cave drawings and carvings, to rock formations and statues. Historians, scientists, museum curators, and amateur archaeologists weigh up the arguments, DNA, carbon, and oral stories of the early Waitaha people, to sift hard fact from mysticism and hope.

Under the Covers was a spin-off series from TVNZ 7 book series The Good Word, compiling Finlay Macdonald’s 10 minute pieces on great Kiwi books into their own show. Each episode features three books and tells the story behind them via interviews, readings and archive footage. This episode featured Barry Crump’s A Good Keen Man, David Lange’s My Life, and — in this excerpt — Jane Mander’s The Story of a New Zealand River, the 1917 novel that some say was an uncredited inspiration for Jane Campion's The Piano. Sam Hunt provides a spirited defence of Mander's book.

The Camera on the Shore is a feature-length portrait of a man who argued eloquently for the rights of indigenous people to control the camera. Based on extensive interviews with Barry Barclay and those who knew him — and footage from his work — it traces the path of one of the first people to bring a Māori perspective to the screen. The documentary ranges from Barclay's early years in a monastery to speeches at his tangi, touching en route on landmark TV series Tangata Whenua, battling corporations on doco The Neglected Miracle, and behind the scenes conflict on Te Rua.

Te Karere is a long-running daily news programme in te reo Māori. Based in the TVNZ newsroom, Te Karere covers key events and stories in the Māori world as well as bringing a Māori perspective to the day's news. Significant for pioneering Māori news on mainstream TV, for three decades it has been a platform for Māori to comment on issues and events. Founded by Derek Fox, it first went to air during Māori Language Week in 1982, before getting its own regular slot the folowing year. Te Karere initially ran for only four minutes, then 15; in 2009 it was expanded to half an hour.

Māori Television’s flagship news show began in 2007, with a kaupapa of tackling current affairs from a Te Ao Māori perspective. Coverage of Waitangi Day, elections, plus investigations (eg into the Urewera Raids, Kiwi troops in Afghanistan, and management of the Kōhanga Reo National Trust) saw Native Affairs win acclaim, plus Best Current Affairs Show at the 2011 Aotearoa Film and TV Awards. Reporters have included Julian Wilcox, Mihingarangi Forbes, Renee Kahukura-Iosefa and Maramena Roderick. In 2015 the one-hour running time was reduced to 30 minutes.

Māori Television’s award-winning news and current affairs show took its bold name from a colonial government department. This 2017 episode profiles four non-conformists: Mongrel Mob boss Rex Timu’s war on P; Raihania Tipoki's waka protest against East Coast oil surveying; Taranaki mother Tina Tupe's preparations for her own tangi; and globetrotting screenwriter David Seidler. Seidler makes an annual trip to a Tarawera cabin – he has a Kiwi son to a Māori woman – and talks about his Oscar-winning movie The King’s Speech, and his admiration for kapa haka.

In this third episode of Captain’s Log, Peter Elliott tracks Captain Cook’s journey down the west coast of the North Island. First he takes the Ranui down to Kaipara Harbour, before hitching a ride on the old kauri schooner Te Aroha to Queen Charlotte Sound. Elliott recounts the story of Cook’s realisation that a strait existed between the two islands, before a brief trip to Wellington on (now defunct) catamaran The Lynx. The episode's final stop is Elliott’s hometown of Lyttelton on the peninsula formerly known as Banks Island, where he takes a hair-raising dive on a lifeboat.