Sunday's TV highlights

7.30PM, TV3
PREHISTORIC PARK
Dinosaur lovers will get a kick out of this $20 million ITV production, which is part-nature show, part-Jurassic Park.

Impressive computer graphics and animatronics bring all manner of terrifying creatures to life as natural history expert Nigel Marven makes like a time-travelling David Attenborough and goes back millions of years to track down prehistoric animals and insects.

His mission is to rescue them before they are wiped out in a meteor strike and bring them back to the present to live in Prehistoric Park.

While in the past, he tries to learn about their diets and habitats so park keepers can keep them healthy in the present.

And Marven is also on hand to witness how and why some species became extinct.

Finding creatures such as Tyrannosaurus rex, sabre-toothed cats, woolly mammoths and enormous crocodiles proves relatively easy but Marven must lure them through the time portal, sometimes using himself as bait.

Once they've got the creatures, Marven and his team strike all sorts of problems looking after them, such as how to heal an ailing woolly mammoth and what to do with two boisterous adolescent T. rex.

He brings in real scientists to help him understand and deal with his menagerie.

If some of the creatures look familiar, it is probably because the same team who helped make the BBC's stunning Walking with Dinosaurs series is behind this production.

In tonight's first episode, Marven travels back 65 million years to find and capture a T. rex in North America.

Actor David Jason narrates the six-part series.


7.30PM, TV2
NZ IDOL
There are only eight finalists left and one has to go home tomorrow night so now's the time to perform, people. Don't forget to vote for your favourite at www.tvnz.co.nz (keyword: nz idol). Watch tomorrow night at 8pm on TV2 for the elimination show.

7.30PM, TV ONE
THE PATH TO 9/11

8.40PM, PRIME
9/11: THE DAY THE WORLD CHANGED
If you turn on the telly this week, you'll be hard-pressed to ignore the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the US.

TVNZ has two different offerings on the subject, the first being the Michael Moore doco Fahrenheit 9/11, which is critical of the Bush administration's actions. It is an an entertaining and provocative look at how Bush and his inner circle used the outrage to further their own ends and curtail liberties.

The mini-series The Path to 9/11 takes a pro-American stance and follows events leading up to the attacks. It's a dramatisation largely based on the 9/11 Commission Report and stars Harvey Keitel and Donnie Wahlberg.

Prime has the BBC docu-drama 9/11: The Day The World Changed.

10.20PM, TV ONE
ARTSVILLE: EARLY DAYS YET
New Zealand poet Allen Curnow was born in 1911 and died in 2001 - he had a long and prolific life. This is the story of one of our best writers, and if you haven't read Wild Iron, his 1941 gem, then check it out.


MOVIES
[rated out of 5]

8.30PM, TV2
SPIDER-MAN 2
Herald rating: * * * *
A case of the sequel being better than the first film, both in effects and character development. Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) wants to hang up his Spidey mask, but he must face up to the newest villain, the tentacled Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina) and get over his personal problems. You know, everyday stuff like the girl you secretly love is now engaged to an astronaut. (2004)

9PM, MAORI TV
THE MAORI MERCHANT OF VENICE
Herald rating: * * * *
Brilliant adaptation of William Shakespeare's play, translated into Maori by the distinguished Maori scholar, Dr Pei Te Hurinui Jones in 1945, in an attempt to make Shakespeare more accessible to Maori. Produced and directed by Don Selwyn. (2002)

10.55PM, TV3
MULLET
Herald rating: * * *
Ben Mendelsohn (The Secret Life of Us) stars in this quiet Aussie flick about a young man who returns to the small coastal NSW town he grew up in, only to find he's not really welcome. The slow-moving plot reflects the pace of life in the town. From David Caesar, director of Idiot Box. (2001)

8.30PM, SKY MOVIES 1
FANTASTIC FOUR
Herald rating: * * *
Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm are on a privately funded research mission in space when their bodies are bombarded by cosmic rays, giving them super-powers. Thoroughly panned by critics, this adaptation of the Marvel Comics superheroes did OK at the box office, possibly as a result of the inclusion of starlet Jessica Alba. A sequel, complete with the Silver Surfer, is in the er, pipeline. (2005)