What to watch on TV this week
SATURDAY
After losing The Voice to ITV, the BBC is attempting to shore up its entertainment roster with this new talent show.
Let it Shine is quite different from its predecessors in that it’s a search for five male singers to play Take That in an upcoming stage show of the same name.
It’s got original group member Gary Barlow among the judges alongside Dannii Minogue and Spandau Ballet’s Martin Kemp, while Graham Norton is one of the presenters.
Tom Hardy stars in this major new period drama. Set in London in 1814, the star plays a man who has returned from Africa to take over his dead father’s troubled shipping empire.
This sets him up for battles with the East India Company and his ambitious half-sister, played by Oona Chaplin (granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin who played the ill-fated lover of Jon Snow in Game of Thrones).
Martin Scorsese’s gangster tale from 1999 is well worth another look if you haven’t seen it for a while. Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Ray Liotta feature in a superb cast.
SUNDAY
A new spelling competition for children aged nine to 13, with each of the competitiors needing to combine knowledge and speed to deal with the words that are fired at them.
We’ve previously seen Levison Wood walking along the Nile and through the Himalayas; for this series, he takes four months to to walk from Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula through Central America to Colombia.
Episode two has our super sleuth taking on nasty villain Culverton Smith, played by Toby Jones.
The title of the episode, The Lying Detective, is derived from Arthur Conan Doyle’s original story, The Crying Detective.
Episode two of the legal drama has Tara trying to intervene in a bitter feud that erupts between two daughters after their father dies.
Her personal life is also quite convoluted when her former fiancé Eric apologises for his unfaithfulness.
A repeat of the show on John Montague, the recently deceased poet.
MONDAY
Anja Murray looks at how the battle to save the curlew underlines how poor we’ve performed in conservation in Ireland, with only 9% of Irish habitats are listed as ‘favourable’.
Just 100 breeding pairs of the distinctive bird remain in this country, an astounding reduction of 90% since the 1970s.
Farming practices, the destruction of peat bogs and forestry are among the factors that have hastened this decline.
Murray looks at how one of unexpected heroes in attempts to save the bird is Ballydangan Gun Club, and also visits farmers who adhere to the practice of high nature value farming.
An episode entitled Terror on the Beach: Why Did It Happen? looks back on the awful events in Tunisia in 2015 when an Islamic State gunman killed 38 people — among them 30 British and three Irish — at a beach at Sousse.
Panorama alleges that much more could have been done to prevent the attack, and to warn tourists of the worsening security situation in Tunisia.
Timothy Spall stars as JMW Turner in Mike Leigh’s enjoyable take on the 18th century painter’s life.
Ian Kehoe of the Sunday Business Post looks at the “vulture funds” that have been buying up property and financial products (mortgages, business loans, etc) in Ireland in recent years.
An estimated €200bn worth of assets have been sold to these giants of the international financial world, often by Nama.
Kehoe looks at what these funds have done in similar situations in other countries, and attempts to assess the implications for mortgage holders and business owners.
He also examines the rationale for selling some of the assets so quickly.
There have been several cases of portfolios being sold to these funds, only for them to be resold soon after for far higher prices.
The IMF’s former man in Ireland, Ashoka Mody, and American intellectual Noam Chomsky are among the contributors.
TUESDAY
This episode of the folklore series looks at tales of magical islands and submerged cities, complete with a visit to the Lough in Cork, and the account of a sighting of the mythical land of Hy Brasil by a group of girls in West Kerry.
Are we really up to a seventh season?
Tom Selleck and co may not set the world alight with their markedly average cop drama, but they obviously have enough fans to give the show an extended lifespan.
WEDNESDAY
The introductions are over and three of the participants step up on the scales to see if they’ve made progress in the first week.
Ragnar Lothbrook and his band of marauders return for a new series.
THURSDAY
Cameras hidden in realistic-looking model animals may cause some confusion for the real creatures they’re embedded with, but they provide us with some excellent insiders’ footage.
There’s a spy pup, spy baby crocodiles, etc.
A new series on women in Gaelic games begins with Cork star Rena Buckley, looking at how she balances the running of her physiotherapy business with the demands of training and playing matches.
FRIDAY
The foodie pals are joined by troubled Hollywood star Lindsay Lohan, who suggests a New York-Italian chicken pot pie for the menu.
A bunch of heavyweight actors join the host, among them Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.
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