6 Part Ed Hillary drama on TV1 & OnDemand

I agree @waynowski, I thought episode 3 was much better than the first two. The dynamics in Ed's and George's friendship came across as more complex than previously portrayed and the letters to Louise were a useful tool to convey a different side to Hillary.

yeah, they try and get into some of the complexity of inter relationships, but i thought they overdid it in the first two to try and have some consistency in the level of drama... but in episode three it seemed to start ringing truer.

Yes. Episode 3 was much more watchable. Maybe in part because it mostly focused on a single event with specific characters, and wasn't breaking the flow by jumping another x months or years without explanation every 5 minutes.

It was better for sure. I don't envy the guy playing Sir Ed. There's a lot for him to try and portray accurately within the directors scope. I wonder what Mike Gill, and others who knew Ed well, think of his portrayal? The crevasse accident stunt with Tenzing was amusing. 'walk, walk, walk, STOMP, ahhhrgh!!! TENZING!!! TENZING!!! TENZING!!! :)

I've just re-watched the film documentary "Beyond the Edge" which I think came out 2-3 years ago that focused on Hilary climbing Everest. Very good doco btw. One interesting snippet that complemented what was shown on the mini-series about George and Ed's relationship on Everest was a comment made by Pete Hillary (I think) saying his dad knew that an all-kiwi summit party wouldn't sit well with Hunt (expedition leader). Being the ambitious person he was, Ed paired up with Tenzing as he was a climber of similar ability and it was likely that because of Tenzings previous experience on Everest, he would be one of the climbers chosen to attempt the summit. The doco also highlighted the huge amount of work that George Lowe and another sherpa did in forcing a route up the Lhotse Face to the South Col to give the expedition a chance to summit.