What to watch on TV this week
Another chance to see Lelia Doolan’s documentary on Derry activist/politician Bernadette McAliskey.
If you’re not into light entertainment or sport, Saturday has recently been a write-off in terms of TV viewing. Hopefully, the ratings for this series will convince the schedulers that quality drama can find a mid-weekend audience.
We’re up to the fifth episode in the eight-part show, and Tom Hardy’s character is having trouble with a nasty blackmail. His brother-in-law is also escalating the situation, and the Crown and the East India Company are at loggerheads.
We really don’t know where this drama is going to go, but so far it really has been worth sticking with.
There are more twists and turns tonight, and those who’ve been following it should be aware that the fourth and final episode is scheduled for Monday.
Dermot Bannon helps sprout farmer Enda to completely overhaul a harbour-side fisherman’s house formerly owned by his aunt. The problems begin when Enda’s design for the project don’t exactly fit with what Bannon has in mind.
Conflicts continue when the family get into what is essentially a self-build, and don’t anticipate the various issues that inevitably arise.
More traditional music as Conal Ó Gráda and Colm Murphy play a lively duet in Ballyvourney, Co Cork.
Will YouTube kill the TV star? The latest episode of the excellent series on young lives features 12-year-old Nikki, whose medical condition led her to creating a video log that has amassed more than 1.5 million views. We see her travel to America for major surgery, before she becomes a contestant on Junior Bake Off.
The show also ties in with Safer Internet Day on February 7, and Nikkie meets up with Em Ford, the acne vlogger who is well used to dealing with negative comments. She provides the younger girl with advice on how to deal with the trolls.
Fair play to the couples who are willing to give the whole nation a look into their relationships.
Among the six people discussing some of their most intimate details with Allison Keating and Dr Ray O’Neill are a couple who met online and want to explore the issues around having a child.
Artist-musician Laurie Anderson discusses such topics as the death of her husband Lou Reed, and also her terrier Lolabelle, the subject of her documentary The Heart Of A Dog.
There are no shortage of shows around hoping to take advantage of our new year’s resolutions and quest for health.
This particular offering promises to apply some science to the benefits or otherwise of such practices as yoga, high intensity interval training and shredding.
Neven Maguire is in Cork for tonight’s show, taking in a visit to the Glenilen brand’s farm in the west of the county, and cooking a duck at the city’s plush Hayfield Manor hotel.
Ciaran has been feeling trapped in his situation, and takes a drastic decision to silence Heather. Niamh and Paul are also at the centre of much of this week’s action, with their encounters getting increasingly dirty.
The couch-dwellars from the previous series are joined by a few new faces for this second season of the show.
This four-part adaptation of Alex Haley’s novel from last year had nowhere near the impact of the original 1977 series.
Back then, the likes of Kunta Kinte and Chicken George even became major figures in Irish popular culture, and while the dodgy imitation accents thrived in the pre-PC era, the horrors of American slavery were also a common conversation topic.
This latest adaptation does have a decent cast, including Jonathan Rhy Meyers as a nasty plantation owner, and was generally well-received for its run in the US last year.
Episode two of the second series has the Connolly brothers falling out in true Irish fashion.
The veteran broadcaster returns with Colette Fitzpatrick for a new run of the show discussing the issues of the day.
The final episode of the current series has the presenters basing themselves in Los Angeles, as they take a studio tour and also cycle along the Santa Monica coastal path.
There’s also a segment on Lough Erne, a beautiful part of the country that probably doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
Síle Nic Chonaonaigh is in Cork checking out the work of Meitheal Mara, whose currachs are a regular sight on the River Lee.
The B-word is one we’ll all be sick of hearing by the end of the year, but our neighbours’ cack-handed attempts to leave the EU has exposed some of the faultlines that look like scuppering the agenda of political and economic union for the states who stay.
This episode of the This World strand has Katya Adler travelling across Europe to meet some of the populist politicians who seem to be on the rise.
The first season of this series brought some enjoyable local tales from the making of major movies in Ireland. This time around, there are more tales from some of the more recent creations.
The couch is packed with A-listers again tonight, with Denzel Washington, Jamie Dornan, Keanu Reevees and Whoopi Goldberg. Music is by Rag’n’Bone Man, who performs his uber-catchy hit ‘Human’.
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