TV REVIEW: Living with LucyRTÉ2 Thursday , One Night StandRTÉ2 Thursday , Wagons DenRTÉ2 Tuesda y, Take Me OutTV3 Thursday , AccusedBBC1 Monday
HERE’S MY TOP – and, needless to say, completely unasked for – tip for Noel Curran, the new director general of RTÉ: pull the plug on RTÉ2.
Who’d miss it? And, in these needs-must times, think of the money it would save. Remember back in the last recession when Network 2, as it was then, was launched? Twentyfour-hour TV was a novel concept. It was normal for stations not to begin broadcasting until the afternoon. Well, RTÉ2 could broadcast its excellent, imaginative and popular children’s programming until, say, 4pm, and then the screen could be filled with an uplifting graphic – a rainbow, a basket of kittens – accompanied by some soothing background music.
It might be good for the nerves, because what isn’t good for them is the station’s new-season crop of programmes and (a) thinking evil thoughts about the licence fee; (b) wondering where all that purely commercial programming fits into the station’s public-service remit; and (c) musing how hard you have to work to make programmes this bad, boring or offensive – and sometimes all three together.
Think that's harsh? Tune into RTÉ2 on Thursday nights, when the new schedule really struts its stuff. It kicks off with Fade Street,the wearyingly pointless show that follows four wannabe something-or-others as they work and party in Dublin. They mustn't want to be actors – every new scene is more stilted than the last as they try to remember what they're supposed or be saying or doing in this, ahem, spontaneous reality show. Part two was this week, and it's not getting any better – though thanks to the reader who contacted me to tell me my review last week was a little too kind and that Fade Streetis "a bed of sewage".
That's followed by Living with Lucy, back for its third series – not, I suspect, because the powers-that-be think it's a good show but because Lucy Kennedy is an engaging, experienced and popular presenter and they just can't figure out what else to do with her. In the first programme she lived with Crystal Swing – which probably seemed like a fantastic idea during the summer, when it was filmed and when they were the talk of the Twitterati and Ryan Tubridy, but those 15 minutes of fame seem well over.
This week Lucy was living with Vanessa Feltz, who has slipped down the alphabet rungs of the UK TV celebrity ladder – with Z looming. Are the twenty- and thirtysomething audience the station is obviously chasing really interested in Feltz?
And then, with the bottom of the barrel in sight, someone at RTÉ2 appears to have thought, well, why don't we scrape it and see what we come up with? And so One Night Stand was born. It's a dating show, and it's so offensive on so many levels it's difficult to know where to start. Presented by Jennifer Maguire, the idea is that three young blokes – the first trio were students at Waterford IT – sit looking at a screen, assessing a large group of likely "dates" who had assembled for their approval in a glassy foyer of what looked like an abandoned building. "Nah, ginge," snorted one chap, discounting the woman with the red hair. They sniggered at the slightly overweight women – that sort of e-mail-in-an-accountancy-firm type of thing. Maguire is a smart cookie, but she has the desperate air of someone who knows the show isn't working. To help the boys get a better look, she then called the girls forward one by one.
“I’ll do the sex dance I do when I’m drunk,” offered one young woman, and she did. The young men picked her. For the next task the remaining candidates, teenagers and women in their early 20s, had to present themselves before the three lotharios and use their best chat-up line.
“I lost my teddy bear; will you sleep with me?” said one doe-eyed, sweet-looking teen. “Save water: let’s shower together,” said another; and there was one long-winded one about being Wilma Flintstone “because I make your bed rock”. And these were some of the clean ones. It makes you wonder exactly what these girls were auditioning for and how it is possible to seem this sleazy and boring at the same time.
The final six then had to go on a group date with the boys for more assessment before the boys made their final choices. It had all the charm and atmosphere of a job interview in a meat factory.
Somehow – and it's hard to believe – the sorry mess of One Night Standwas classier than the cringey, crude and unfunny mess that is the new Kathleen Lynch vehicle, Wagons Den, about which the less said the better – because maybe, just maybe, it'll go away.
Of course if RTÉ2 were to go we'd miss the frisson of seeing some great American imports such as Gray's Anatomy, Desperate Housewivesand Mad Mena little earlier than they appear on other stations, but maybe some room could be found for them on RTÉ1.
ALTHOUGH EVERY NOW and again I might take a pop at some cheaply made programme on TV3 (its recent lifestyle show How Healthy Are You?looked like it was filmed in someone's house on a camera phone), ultimately I can't get too worked up about it. TV3 is a commercial station chasing ratings: it's in the business of hurling as many programmes as it can at the schedule to see if some will stick, build an audience and attract advertisers. And a lot of it is working, probably because this year it has been noticeable that the station is making more and more programmes instead of just taking anything ITV offers or rummaging around in the bargain bins at international TV sales fairs.
Some shows are good, entertaining examples of their type, particularly The Morning Show with Sybil Martin, a daily magazine show with easy-going, engaging presenters and good content; Midday, Colette FitzPatick and Elaine Crowley's women-only chatfest, is also usually worth a look. Tonight with Vincent Browneis now so sure of its status as a current-affairs talk shop that on Tuesday when the programme put in a request for a Fianna Fáil rep, Browne refused to be pawned off with a backbencher, believing that the crises to be discussed needed a Minister's input. When that show started, the panel often looked so patchy you knew the researchers had a hard time luring anyone out to the Ballymount studios at that time of night.
TV3's dating show Take Me Out, a-cheap-as-chips version of the ITV show, but presented here by the DJ Ray Foley, is fun and harmless and pitched, like One Night Stand, at viewers in their 20s. The idea is that 30 young ones – all fake tans and glittery body-con get-ups – each stand behind a lightbox; then a bloke comes on to tell a bit about himself and do his party piece. Ray instructs the women: "If you're feeling nuttin', push that button." By the time he's done his best there's a handful of lights left, and he chooses a date. We're not talking ballroom of romance, but the difference between it and the RTÉ2 offering is that it looks giddy and silly. No one says anything objectionable, everyone looks as though they're having a good time – and it doesn't cost the licence payer a cent.
tvreview@irishtimes.com
Extraordinary circumstances Eccleston in the dock in this TV drama masterclass
Just when some escapist drama would be welcome, along comes Accused, six new BBC dramas written by Jimmy McGovern and linked by the theme of ordinary people who end up on trial.
The first starred Christopher Eccleston as Willy Houlihan, a man locked in a holding cell when we first meet him. As he makes his way back to the courtroom the drama unfolds, and we learn what brought him – an ordinary bloke, a plumber and family man – to this point. It’s a grim but relentlessly ordinary tale.
He has money worries, a daughter marrying into a wealthier family – “So he’s not on the bones of his arse, then, your dad?” he asks his prospective son-in-law – and a girlfriend whom he wants to leave his wife for.
Eccleston played it all anger and frustration – hard to believe he was once a soft Dr Who. His money worries appear to be solved when he finds £20,000 in a taxi, but the hole just gets deeper. There’s little in the way of police procedure or courtroom dramatics; it’s all about the crime and the punishment. The ordinary bloke just couldn’t get a break.
Top acting, a masterclass in TV drama writing and, downbeat as it is, one to set the timer for.
