Sunday Night is an excellent foray into long form current affairs by the 7 Network, and they’re making a pretty good stick of it. They’re up against an Australian TV/current affairs institution, but they are pushing on and delivering some very good stories. This week is no difference. From the press release:

KYLIE MINOGUE
Reporter Molly Meldrum

This is Kylie like we’ve not seen before – the most personal interview she’s ever given. Forty something Kylie talks about cancer, her toughest moment, babies, marriage and her future career.

Her world tour has just begun, she’s heading to Australia, but more importantly she has now been free from cancer for five years. Kylie opens her heart to Molly Meldrum, she hugs him and turns to camera. Kylie: “This is Molly’s exclusive and there’s only one person in Australia who can get this kind of stuff and it’s Mr Meldrum.”Molly: “I should be so lucky!” Kylie gasps, begins crying and rushes from the interview when she begins describing her most emotional moment, at the bedside of a sick child in Melbourne Children’s Hospital. Resuming the interview Kylie gets emotional again. She also signals for the first time children may not be part of her future.

Kylie: ” I’ve imagined myself having children before getting married, or more so than getting married, and now well, well we’ll just have to see, I’m not sure if that’s part of my future.”Molly joins Kylie on the set of her latest tour extravaganza and we shoot her crazy first concert.

MILLIONAIRE HOON
Reporter Alex Cullen

Now to a man who drives like a hoon and makes no apology for it. Ken Block is an American rally car driver whose hooning videos are in the top ten most popular downloads on You Tube last year. Outside of the USA, Australians have downloaded his ballet of burn outs more times than anyone else. Who would have thought you could earn millions by being a hoon?

Alex Cullen meets the man who has become a legend on the internet, the father and founder of the international DC shoe company. In the mid 90s Ken co-founded DC Shoes. He used his marketing genius to build a global brand and sold the company to Quicksilver for 100 million dollars. Ken stayed on as a consultant but instead of putting his feet up he put his foot down and decided to become a rally car driver. And in just a few years the man who founded a global shoe company had become the company’s biggest athlete. He’s now a brand himself. There’s merchandise that matches his car. And to inspire the next generation there are even Ken Block toys. Find out more about Ken Block the millionaire hoon who plans to bring his unique hooning style to Australia this year.

And there are already Aussies who are already huge fans such as a Brisbane couple Sarah and Adam Burges who manage BMI racing. The couple’s nine year old daughter Bridgitte helps out in the pitt – she calls herself Ken Blocks number one fan. So Sunday Night organised a meeting with Bridgitte and Ken Block. Bridgette was tongue tied! Ken will race in Australia for the first time in September this year. He will compete in The World Rally Championship in Coffs Harbour.

CANCER MIRACLE
Reporter Rahni Sadler

When Natalie Langworthy met Andy Fairclough neither of them could have known that within a few short years of falling in love they would be fighting for Natalie’s life – then experiencing a medical miracle, a miracle made possible by their devotion to each other and bravery against all odds. This is a love story like no other.

Natalie ‘I started noticing bruising and it was very easy bruising like I would knock myself extremely lightly and then a big bruise would come up and then I knew something was not right.” Natalie was given a battery of blood tests to try and find the cause of the mystery bruising – and a tiredness she’d put down to being a new mum. Natalie alone at the hospital. The doctor didn’t want to tell her the news without Andy there, but Nat had already guessed. ‘I asked him and I said is it Leukaemia?’ ‘And he said yes.’ Nat: ‘I just thought there’s nothing I can do I’m going to die and that was a pretty harsh reality.’ Nat was only 32. Natalie underwent gruelling chemo and managed to get to day 76 of making improvements when she realised the cancer had come back. She had relapsed.

Natalie knew the bitterest truth of all that at only eight months her beloved daughter would have no memory of the mother she once had. But Andy refused to give up. In the midst of the trauma he proposed to Nat. And as Nat slept Andy was on the internet scouring the world for any spark of hope. Then one of Andy’s email chains circling the world finally finds one man who might have an answer. Professor Max Topp in Wurzburg, Germany is running a clinical trial on terminal leukaemia patients using a revolutionary drug. The trial had helped 80 per cent of his patients.

By then Natalie weighed only 40 kilos nearly 70 per cent of her blood and bone marrow was cancerous. Then the drug began to drip into her body. The drug being used in the clinical trial is called Blinatumomab. It targets the leukaemia cells binding them to the body’s own hunter-killer immune cells- which destroys the cancer cells. And after a few rounds of having the drug injected into her body Andy and Nat are about to hear news they could have only dreamed of – not a trace of leukaemia in her body! With the all clear from Germany Natalie will return to Australia for another bone-marrow transplant.

Sunday Night – Sun 6:30pm, Ch7.