Sam Neill travels the routes of Captain Cook for History channel
The History channel is taking to the seas and walking in the footsteps of Captain James Cook with actor, producer, director and vineyard owner Sam Neill.
“The Pacific made Cook and it killed him too…they are forever bound together. He stitched its islands, its continental borders and its indigenous peoples into the fabric of the global community we know today. Admire him or abhor him, James Cook cannot be banished from its history even now, as peoples of the modern Pacific, we make our own history.” – Sam Neill
Sam Neill best known for hits such as Jurassic Park, Peaky Blinders, Hunt For The Wilderpeople and The Piano has taken on a journey for the History channel. Sam followed in Captain Cook’s wake 250 years after his exploration of the Pacific to uncover stories that resonate on both sides of the ocean.
Sam has always been fascinated by Captain Cook and traveled to Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, the Antarctic, Tonga, Canada and Alaska uncovering the history and revealing stories that haven’t been shared before.
Across six episodes Sam will take viewers through an epic and thoroughly modern look at 250 years of Pacific history. Captain Cook’s Pacific with Sam Neill premieres on HISTORY® Sunday at 9pm from 29th September.
The first episode, entitled Endeavour and Tahiti, begins as the 250th anniversary of Cook leaving Plymouth is marked. Sam Neill visits Tahiti to follow Cook’s journey around the Pacific, and hears from Tahitians about what Cook means 250 years on. The following week (6th Oct) the second edition – Endeavour and New Zealand – sees Sam continue Captain Cook’s initial voyage through the Pacific. This time, circumnavigating New Zealand/Aotearoa learning of the impact the explorer had on its Maori inhabitants.
The third outing, Endeavour and Australia, sees the programme explore Australia, the final stop Cook made on the HMS Endeavour before returning to England. Episode four, Resolution and the Great Southern Continent, looks at Captain Cook’s second voyage around the Pacific. Cook boarded the Resolution in search of the Great Southern Continent, a mythical land thought to balance the earth. Neill retraces this adventure while in episode five, entitled Resolution and Northwest Passage, Sam Neill follows the path of Cook’s third voyage into the Pacific, this time north to the Arctic, and his life-threatening attempt to locate the Northwest Passage.
In the last edition, which airs on November 3rd, Sam follows Cook through the Arctic in search of the fabled Northwest passage in an edition titled Resolution and Hawaii. The programme then heads south to Hawaii where the esteemed explorer would ultimately find his demise.
