TEN has now revealed the airdate for its anticipated telemovie Underground: The Julian Assange Story.
It will premiere 8.30pm Sunday October 7th.
It’s now a three-way local drama battle in the same timeslot, against Nine’s House Husbands and Seven’s free to air premiere of PayTV series Killing Time. A week later ABC1 premieres Jack Irish.
A TEN News special Julian Assange presented by Hamish MacDonald will precede the telemovie at 8pm. MacDonald has recently been on assignment in Europe and the US covering the story.
Julian Assange is one of the most significant figures of the 21st century. But before he was famous, before WikiLeaks, before the World Wide Web even existed, he was a teenage computer hacker in Melbourne. Underground is his story.
Fresh from screening at the Toronto International Film Festival where the entertainment industry bible Variety dubbed it as “one of the small screen events of the year”, the film stars newcomer Alex Williams as the young renegade. Golden Globe winners Rachel Griffiths and Anthony LaPaglia star as Christine Assange and Detective Ken Roberts
respectively.
Immediately before Underground, award-winning TEN news reporter and presenter Hamish Macdonald presents Julian Assange: a TEN News Special. The special looks at the man behind the WikiLeaks phenomenon, his subsequent extradition trial and what the future holds for one of the world’s most wanted men.
Macdonald travelled to London, Sweden and Washington and discovered dramatic new information from those at the centre of this extraordinary story. This unique insight will also premiere on Sunday, October 7.
Interesting question then- when is it too much promotion? Especially when no one is watching your programs?
I am soooo looking forward to this … what a great way to get the truth out there!
I’m sick of seeing and hearing about Julian Assange, the line “my son sees the world differently to other people” is so cliched and over used. Hear’s a new flash writers, everyone sees the world differently.
Looks good def will be watching
Agree with Ronnie
Have HH a couple of goes but never again, so for me it’s a no brainer
I think this movie could give Ten their highest figures for the year, and remind them how much ground they have lost. HH figures will not recover from the audience it loses to this and Jack Irish – it’s just not appointment viewing.
I feel like I’ve already seen this with the countless sneak peeks during ‘Puberty Blues’ and Craig Ferguson (the only Ten/Eleven shows I watch at the moment).
It will be a good test of the theory…”If you build it,they will come”.
In this case…”If you show good quality programs, they will watch”.
It wouldn’t matter what competition it was up against.
The fact it’s airing on TEN already means it’s been handed the poisoned chalice.
I hope it does well as it looks great but its on TEN. TEN have been sucking big time lately and viewers seem to have forgotten they exist lately. IMO Killing Time won’t do that great. Its been on here already even if it is Foxtel, its still been on here. IMO Bones or Castle would rate better. Yes i know its Aussie but i gave you my reason already.
Ten should cling on to Hamish MacDonald. He should be fronting a weekly tv show.
It’s a pity that this will clash with other Aussie dramas. Would probably do better on a different night.
Good to see Hamish with another project and not just being wasted on the Late News.
The big question is whether people will choose to watch this or continue to watch the mindless House Husbands. I still can’t believe that rubbish like HH is rating so well. It has had little competition thus far.
Hopefully, with more quality such as Underground, Killing Time & Jack Irish viewers will come to their senses.
Thanks David for this bit of news. I’ll admit if they had of announced the date during an ad I would of just said they mentioned it. Plus asked if there was an embargo because of last time. But now there is no worries on the issue.
The one thing that is a bummer is the 7.30pm special. Because if the ABC is playing Great Southern Land then I’ll be watching that. Too bad they probably couldn’t repeat the special even on another channel if it got mentioned here. I’d probably watch it then.
So we have a one hour news item about Jullian Assange, and then a movie showing the same thing, but with more drama? That’s a weird move by Ten.