Game for a laugh

TV REVIEW:The World Cup and Après Match RTÉ2, Tuesday Style Wars TV3, Tuesday Bombings RTÉ1, Tuesday Rev BBC1, Sunday Grey's Anatomy RTÉ2, Tuesday

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME has kicked in. Whatever the footie equivalent is of Patty Hearst’s jaunty beret, I should be wearing it – because there comes a point when resistance is futile and you really may as well join them on the sofa, hand wedged in a giant bag of crisps, watching the

World Cup

. Not a whole 90 minutes, of course – that would be mad – just the exciting bits, such as the penalty shoot-out on Tuesday (and, yes, I know genuine fans hate penalty shoot-outs, but for the rest of us it’s nail-biting theatre). And if you didn’t feel a bit teary at the sight of the weeping Japanese fans on the terraces, and the dignified way the team lined up to bow to their supporters before filing off the pitch, you’d be hard-hearted – or from Paraguay.

A lot of channel surfing goes on, to avoid Mick McCarthy’s human vuvuzela drone on ITV and George Hamilton’s stating the flippin’ obvious commentary on RTÉ – all that calling out the players’ names isn’t such a good trick, as even I can spot that their names are written on their backs. But when it come to the analysis, it’s always RTÉ, with lead chair okey-doke Bill O’Herlihy and his council of wise elders, Johnny Giles, Eamon Dunphy and Liam Brady. “Ronaldo’s a disgrace,” pronounced a typically forthright Giles after the Portugal-Spain game, prompting a technical debate about how often he flicks the ball in a show-off sort of way – not a good thing, apparently. Then there was a disagreement between Giles and Brady over whether the Portuguese pouter spat at the camera or just in its general direction as he walked off the pitch. “Definitely, Bill,” said Giles. “No, don’t think so, Bill,” said Brady as we saw a replay of the spit – never in the history of TV has a man been name-checked by his panellists as often as Bill.

And news flash for footiephobics: Après Matchis a must-see. Watch it because the brief comedy sketch show isn't always about football and mostly because it's the funniest thing on TV at the moment. Their take-off of TV3's Tonight with Vincent Browne, with Barry Murphy as Browne mastering his trademark harrumphing and wandering, dismissive style of questioning, is hilarious, though Risteárd Cooper's impersonation of Joan Burton is a bit cruel — but in a funny way, of course: no one has worn that much blue eyeshadow since 1976. Most of the sketches are on YouTube if you want to catch up.

TV3 CONTINUES WITH its anything-but-football, girl-centric scheduling with Style Wars, a new Apprentice-type series that's a nod in the direction of Project Runway. Over the coming weeks 10 very individual style-obsessed people – "I don't do fashion, I amfashion," proclaimed one girl by way of introduction – will compete for a chance to work for Ian Galvin, chairman of a fashion group that includes several high-street brands. It's the usual format, with contestants divided into groups to complete a task while the camera follows them to record every bitchy moment.

They have a mentor, Angela Woods, head of design at NCAD, a mini-powerhouse of a woman who advises the 10 to “see me as a critical friend”, which usually means the sort of friend who’ll freely tell you that, yes, your bum does look big in that.

The judges are Galvin, Irish fashion royalty Peter O’Brien and supermodel-turned- businesswoman Caprice, whose ability to talk without appearing to move a single muscle in her face is worth tuning in for alone. It’s great fun and, as it is produced by an independent production company, quality-wise it’s streets ahead of TV3’s usual in-house offerings. Also, by recruiting a top judging panel and a mentor with credibility, they’ve given the whole thing some substance.

In episode one the task was to design two shop windows, and there was instant tension in one of the teams, with the four achingly cool twentysomethings ganging up on Dee Farrell, whose only crime against fashion appeared to be that she’s ancient. She’s – gasp – 41, a Peig Sayers in the eyes of her team-mates, who didn’t seem to cop that she was just a year older than Caprice and, I bet, a good deal younger than Galvin and O’Brien.

If the contestants' personalities are as out-there as their personal style – my favourite is the young one whose giant specs are reminiscent of Corrie's Deirdre Barlow in her heyday – it should make for entertaining viewing over the summer.

NOT QUITE SEASONAL viewing is Bombings, RTÉ's new series profiling, through archive footage and interviews, some of the paramilitary attacks in Ireland during the 1970s and 1980s. The first programme, voiced with calm precision by Doireann Ní Bhriain, described the death in 1972 of Sam Donegan, a Garda inspector who was blown up by a roadside bomb. It was a very personal story. His son Michael, then a Leaving Cert student, detailed the events of the day, while family photos and black-and-white contemporary footage established Donegan and the soldier injured with him in the attack as flesh-and-blood people, something the cowards on the hill with the detonators in their hands must not have seen them as.

The black-and-white footage made it seem like a long, long time ago, which it wasn’t, not really; and, anyway, as one of the gardaí who was there at the time remarked, the Border was a world away for Southerners. It had the feeling, though, of just being one half of the story: what happened to the bombers – and who they were – would have completed the picture.

REGIONAL PROGRAMMES pushed the BBC's new sitcom, Rev,out from its prime-time slot to midnight in the schedule for those of us who watch BBC NI – not late enough, as it turned out. It's got plenty of very familiar "sit" – an Anglican vicar (Tom Hollander) is moved to an inner-city London parish (sort of The Vicar of Dibleyin reverse, except starring a thin man) – and precious little "com".

There were some good lines, though. Attendance in church quadruples overnight because of rumours that the soon-to-be- published school league tables are set to reveal that the local Anglican school is tops. Cue hordes of middle-class parents suddenly discovering religion. “It’s so bad,” explained the deacon, “we had to baptise a seven-year-old boy last week. It was like an exorcism.”

One smug new parishioner breezily explained his new-found conversion: “On your knees, avoid the fees.”

Showdown at the surgery US drama's 6th series goes out with a bang

So many US series are picked up by different stations it can be hard to keep track. Fans of the brilliant legal drama The Good Wifewatching on RTÉ2 will know from this week's episode that the firm is in trouble financially and that someone is tweeting hot gossip about Alicia (the fantastic Julie Margulies). Those of us watching on Channel 4 are so over all that now and are deeply embroiled in the will-they-or-won't-they Will and Alicia plot.

So, spoiler alert for fans of Grey's Anatomy, which wrapped up its sixth series on RTÉ2: if you're watching on Living TV, look away now – you're an episode behind. The two-part season finale was superb. Last week saw an armed Gary Clark (Michael O'Neill) arrive at the hospital and begin killing indiscriminately as he searched for Derek, the man he blames for his wife's death. It was gory and shocking, and the suspense was ratcheted up when first Alex was shot and then Derek (in – where else for McDreamy? – the heart).

This week’s closer picked up from there, and, OK, you couldn’t ask yourself too many questions, such as Where was that Swat team? and Why didn’t a single person in the entire hospital have a mobile phone? It didn’t matter, and anyway the plotting was so tense there wasn’t time.

“Did you know you could buy a gun in a superstore, right there off aisle eight?” mused killer Clarke in one of the final scenes, the series’ liberal beating heart hammering the message home. Right up to the end it wasn’t clear who would survive – well, obviously, Derek couldn’t die, and it’s wishful thinking they’d get rid of moany Meredith – and that was the brilliance in the writing, full of shocks and turns, tying up loose ends and prepping for season seven. Can’t wait.