Patrick Freyne

Patrick Freyne columns

Fish-out-of-water TV is back and it’s great fun altogether

Literal fish-out-of-water dramas are short and sadly predictable but here are my figurative favourites

These Criminal Minds folks look and sound as if they work for Accenture

The behavioural-analysis unit all feel like the sort of people who can do accounts. That might be why I default to the A-Team when I try to think about them

Joey Essex was raised by television, his mother a camera, his father a boom microphone

I’m pretty sure even Joey Essex doesn’t know he’s on Love Island. He probably thinks he’s just on holiday with his family, the camera equipment

Jedis were once a seasoning, like salt. We liked the salt, and now Disney is serving us big bowls of salt

The Acolyte, Disney’s emotionally and visually flat new Star Wars spin-off, needs to stop with all the confusing lightsabre fights

From Nicola Coughlan’s hunks in landscaped gardens to Cillian Murphy’s gripping gangster romp: Patrick Freyne’s costume drama guide

With the return of Bridgerton, here’s a guide to costume drama

Doctor Who’s Space Babies definitely went to an Educate Together school

Patrick Freyne: Doctor Who allows adults to enjoy swashbuckling adventures without feeling patronised and allows children to access something dark and weird while feeling safe

Patrick Freyne: On Selling the OC, Alex has the recipe for a good relationship. It’s a nice, alliterative list – all the C-words

The Netflix reality show involves glamorous ladies and hunky gentlemen quaffing champagne and talking about their problems at length

Claudia Winkleman could be in your midst right now. Security forces live in fear of the day she goes rogue

Patrick Freyne: On The Piano, she shows why she’s the best light-entertainment presenter. Jon Bon Jovi, on the other hand, is both cheesy and hammy

‘I have lived so long. Why am I still here?’ Simon Cowell’s beady little eyes seem to say

Patrick Freyne: Britain’s Got Talent is back, its name now less a triumphalist boast than a pleading sales pitch from a waning superpower

The Full Irish Hidden Camera Show understands the craic must be baited, captured and solemnly clubbed to death

Patrick Freyne: Frequently it seems as if those ‘duped’ by Doireann Garrihy, Carl Mullan and Donncha O’Callaghan are playing along, much as you would indulge the tomfoolery of a child

Is it cake? Do not show your worst child this programme! They already suspect everything is cake

Patrick Freyne: I’m taking the existence of this Netflix gameshow as a sign that the jig is up for the human race

Patrick Freyne’s favourite TV shows of 2024: An Irish national treasure, bickering hitfolk and the best actor of her generation

Andrew Scott in Ripley and Donald Glover and Maya Erskine in Mr & Mrs Smith are among the highlights thus far

Patrick Freyne: The English now have both our fourth green field and Lindsay Lohan

We meet Lindsay Lohan’s character Maddie on the way to a book launch as her scarf gets shut in the door of a taxi that then zooms off with it

Patrick Freyne: 12 reasons why it hasn’t always been cool to be Irish - including Murder, She Wrote and Batman

Young Irish people are growing up with an unreasonable sense of confidence. St Patrick’s weekend is an ideal chance to correct the record

Patrick Freyne: I suspect some of the Celebrity Big Brother participants booked beds on Airbnb - the producers thought, good enough

Louis Walsh and Sharon Osborne both seem grumpy. They have either been conscripted against their will under new legislation or they’re each here so they can pay an unexpected bill

Formula 1 drivers are the dullest stars that have ever bothered reality-television

Patrick Freyne: Why do Formula 1 drivers bother with expensive, uncomfortable cars? I have a cost-effective Nissan Micra that smells of Haribo Supermix

JLo seems not so much to mix metaphors as to cut them with coke

Patrick Freyne: As the singer clambers into her own heart in her musical fantasia, an uncharitable critic might suggest she is climbing up a different body part

I feel a swell of national pride when I see a big Irish hunk do well on the telly

Patrick Freyne: On Love Island – All Stars, Adam spends much of his time wearing a hat and tiny pants and little else. It’s a classic Irish look

Put the Dancing with the Stars judges in charge of RTÉ. They’d give Mattie McGrath a run for his money

Patrick Freyne: ‘Have all the money that you want and spend it on what you like,’ the TD would have told the majesterial Lorraine Barry

Patrick Freyne: In a housing crisis, Room to Improve feels like a barometer of our national derangement

There are three people in every Room to Improve marriage if you include Dermot Bannon

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