Where: Various channels
Once again, Maori Television is dedicating a whole day's coverage to Anzac Day commemorations. Starting at 5.50am with a karakia from Cape Reinga, it moves to Auckland War Memorial Museum where hosts Julian Wilcox and Judy Bailey present live coverage of the dawn service.
A highlight at 8.30pm will be Bailey's interview with war hero John Masters, who is reunited with Hariprasad Gurung, the man whose life he saved 44 years ago during conflict in Borneo. There will be many "scrapbook" moments as prominent New Zealanders talk about their experiences of war.
A classic war movie, Reach For The Sky, is on at 11.30am and a feature-length documentary, Swoop of the Cormorant: One Family's Sacrifice, screens at 5.30pm. This doco tells the story of the whanau of Mata and Hori Hetet, who had more than 40 grandchildren and great-grandchildren who went to war.
It focuses on people like Kingi Turner, who was a baby when his father Hone died of wounds in Italy during World War II. Kingi often wondered what life would have been like if his father had come home. During the doco, Turner and the Hetets' other descendants reveal the scars that war leaves on future generations.
Elsewhere, TV One also has a strong Anzac focus. The programme to watch is The Kiwi Who Saved Britain (5pm), about New Zealander Keith Park, who led the aerial defence of Britain against the Germans in the summer of 1940 - better known as the Battle of Britain.
"If any one man won the Battle of Britain, he did," declared Lord Tedder of the Royal Air Force back in 1947.
The documentary combines war archive footage filmed by the British and Germans, scripted drama and feature film footage from the 1969 classic movie The Battle Of Britain, and interviews with people who knew Park.
Also on TV One is Praise Be (8am), presenting hymns and worship songs for Anzac Day; while Waka Huia (10am) looks at the story of Rangiwaho Whaanga, a veteran of four war campaigns in Italy, Japan, Korea and Malaya. The Anzac Day wreath-laying ceremony is live from the National War Memorial in Wellington from 11:30am.
TV3 has The Time Of Our Lives (1pm), a documentary by prolific local filmmaker Gaylene Preston, whose latest wartime feature, Home By Christmas, opens in cinemas on April 29.
On Prime, Not Forgotten - The Men Who Wouldn't Fight (10.30am) tracks down some of the descendants of the millions of men listed on memorials in towns around Britain, and The Family That Defied Hitler (11.25am) tells the story of one of the few Polish Jewish families who survived the Holocaust.
