TV guide: 12 of the best new shows to watch, beginning tonight

The Summer Show

Sunday, RTÉ One, 6.30pm

It may be raining but Derek Mooney and Nuala Carey are keeping a sunny outlook as they present the second series of The Summer Show. Mooney and Carey will be travelling the length and breadth of the country in search of the best Ireland has to offer during the season, whether it’s good food, natural scenery or historic attractions. Among the treats in store will be the scent of lavender in Cape Clear, the clack of high heels during Ladies’ Day at the Galway Races, and the sound of bell-ringing at St Canice's cathedral in Kilkenny.

Fastest Finger First

Sunday, Virgin Media One, 6pm

Who wants to star on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? You do? Well, step right up to the buzzer for this new show, billed as a “gateway” show to getting in front of Jeremy Clarkson and going for the million-pound prize. Fastest Finger First borrows from the Millionaire round of the same name, as contestants answer general knowledge questions while showing their digital celerity in getting their finger on the buzzer. The five winners over the first series will do it all again, this time under the gimlet eye of Clarksie himself.

Wolf

Monday, BBC One, 9pm

Another week, another detective with a dark past – we just can’t get enough of damaged cops up against even more damaged adversaries. DI Jack Caffery (Ukweli Roach) is haunted by the unsolved murder of his brother, which happened in the 1990s when they were kids but the nightmares won’t go away. He thinks he knows who did it, but meanwhile goes about his job trying to put the world to rights. When the daughter of a wealthy couple, Matilda and Oliver Anchor-Ferrers (Juliet Stevenson and Owen Teale) and their daughter Lucia (Annes Elwy) are targeted by a psychopath, the nightmares become all too real. This six-part series is based on the acclaimed Jack Caffery novels by Mo Hayder.

The Seven Ages of Noël Browne

Monday, RTÉ One, 9.35pm

In a repressive Ireland ruled with an iron crosier by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, one man dared to defy the Catholic Church’s brutal social engineering: socialist contrarian Dr Noël Browne. This intimate portrait of Browne is based on a previously unseen interview and looks at his eventful life, including his time as a radical minister for health who introduced the mother and child scheme and challenged McQuaid’s toxic authoritarianism at every turn. With help from his daughters Ruth and Susan, the programme explores this complex figure and how his legacy resonates in Ireland today.

Tuesday, Channel 5, 9pm

Earth’s satellite plays a huge role in the evolution of the planet’s life. This two-part series hosted by amateur astronomer Dara Ó Briain explores the moon’s close relationship with Earth. He doesn’t fly to the moon but he does visit Newgrange to see how the moon controls the passage of time, and meets Dr Rohin Francis to learn how the moon affects human behaviour.

Bailte

Tuesday, TG4, 8.30pm

Welcome to Tuar Mhic Éadaigh (Toormakeady), a charming, scenic village in the heart of the south Mayo Gaeltacht. Behind this rural idyll between the shores of Lough Mask and the Partry Mountains, however, lies a turbulent history. In this episode Síle Nic Chonaonaigh explores the legacy of emigration, the village’s role in the War of Independence, the huge pride felt by local people and their strong connection with the lake. She also meets a cohort of younger people who are planning to return and make a life there.

Celebrity MasterChef

Wednesday, BBC One, 9pm

The MasterChef for famous people returns for its 18th series, with no shortage of celebs willing to roll up their sleeves and get down to some serious cooking in the kitchen. John Torode, recently returned from his culinary trip around Ireland, co-hosts with Gregg Wallace, and the first batch of stars putting on their chef’s hat are reality TV star Dani Dyer, actor James Buckley, actor/comedian Marcus Brigstocke and TV “personalities” Mica Ven and Richie Anderson.

Departure

Wednesday, Sky Witness & Now, 9pm

The Canadian crime series returns for a third outing, starring Archie Panjabi as investigator Kendra Malley. In the first two series she and her team at the Transport Safety and Investigations Bureau dealt with an aircraft crash and a train disaster. This time they’re in deeper waters as a ferry bringing 500 passengers from Boston to St John’s in Newfoundland encounters a storm and begins to rapidly take on water, eventually sinking with a huge loss of life. It’s up to Malley and her team to find out what happened aboard the Queen of the Narrows to make it go down so fast.

Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland

Thursday, RTÉ One, 10.10pm

This groundbreaking series looks at the Troubles through the eyes of the ordinary people who lived through it, and many who were willingly and unwillingly drawn into the conflict. In this week’s episode we meet families of IRA hunger strikers challenging Margaret Thatcher’s policies, and the wife of a policeman who was murdered by the IRA in 1981. Ten republican prisoners died during the hunger strikes, and we hear harrowing stories of blanket protests, the notorious dirty protests and the families who supported their loved ones as they starved themselves to death.

Code Blue: The Killing of June Fox-Roberts

Thursday, UTV, 9pm

In November 2021 South Wales police faced a race against time to catch a violent killer, following the discovery of the dismembered body of 65-year-old grandmother June Fox-Roberts. Her daughter Abi had made the discovery and police knew they had to act fast before the killer struck again. This programme revisits the investigation, as Abi recalls the trauma of finding her mother’s body, and investigating officers discuss the difficult task of identifying the individual behind the killing.

Millionaire Hoarders

Friday, Channel 4, 8pm

It’s generally accepted that hoarding is a bad thing, and if you find yourself surrounded by clutter you can’t bring yourself to discard, then you’re in need of counselling as well as a large skip. When the team at Millionaire Hoarders look at clutter, however, they see something different: a chance to turn all that bric-a-brac into big bucks. In this new series antiques and collectibles experts Clive Downham, Paula Sutton, Rachel Fox and Ronnie Archer-Morgan sift through people’s junk in search of treasures, and their first stop is a 700-year-old castle where they make a discovery that could help the owners raise much-needed funds.

Millionaire Hoarders experts Paula Sutton (left), Clive Downham, Ronnie Archer-Morgan and Rachel Fox

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

From Friday, Prime Video

Sigourney Weaver stars in this emotional family drama series set in the Australian outback, and spanning decades. Nine-year-old Alice (Alyla Browne) has lost her parents in a fire, and is sent to live with her grandmother June (Weaver). June runs Thornfield flower farm, and it’s here that Alice begins to blossom but also where she learns more about her family’s dark past. Alycia Debnam-Carey stars as grown-up Alice, who suspects that something more is going on behind the rosy facade of Thornfield, but little suspects the danger she will soon be in.