TV REVIEW:OUR REMOTE WENT on the blink this week, so we reverted to that tried and tested method of barking instructions to the children to get up there and change the channel, accompanied by cosy reminiscences about TV-watching back in the day.
Except, of course, it's rubbish not having a remote. No idle flicking between The Frontlineon RTÉ and Vincent Browne on TV3 just to see who's on the panel. No easy nipping over to programmes you can't quite hack a full episode of but are grimly fascinated by nevertheless, such as the cruel and compelling The Biggest Loser(UTV), to see if that big Limerick lad Gerard has stopped moaning. (He's still whingeing, even though this week they were in sunny Florida, for heaven's sake.) And this is the real killer: there's no skipping the ads.
Having a child in case the remote breaks is just the sort of random notion that might have tipped the scales in Maia Dunphy's on-screen quest to decide if she should have a baby. From Boom to Maternity (RTÉ2, Monday) was yet another RTÉ2 programme that looked like it had strayed in from TV3, though, unlike last week's cringefest about a Dublin auction house, this one was at least well made. Dunphy recently married the British comedian Johnny Vegas – her scripted voiceover showed she's way funnier than he is – but they live mostly apart, so she was agonising over the decision alone. "You can Skype a marriage but not a nappy change," she said.
She’s great on screen, and it was a watchable programme, if too long to sustain an idea that couldn’t decide if it was light-hearted – “everyone says it’s different when they’re your own; they don’t smell as bad” – or serious, with her wondering if she may have, biologically, left it too late.
The life swap with the mother of twin toddlers was well done. “I did not sign up for pooh under my nails,” Dunphy gagged during one of the “nuclear waste” nappy changes. But other elements felt like padding – the last thing you need in a pregnancy-themed show. In one long section she rode around town in a limo with a gang of mothers, watching a bloody birth – is there any other kind? – on the in-car screen. “Awww, that is bee-you-tee-full,” they chorused, with feeling. Dunphy (and I) grimaced.
I still don't understand the title, though. From Boom to Maternity? It wins this week's Gratuitous Use of the Word "Boom" Award. Bring on the day when it's used only for programmes about trench warfare or bomb disposal.
THE INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERPaul Maguire had more reason than most to put his head in his hands when RTÉ suspended Prime Time Investigatespending completion of the review of the Fr Kevin Reynolds libel case. He was already working on a report into prostitution in Ireland that involved tracking the daily activity of a website for escorts (the cosmetic word for prostitutes), going undercover in brothels to talk to prostitutes all over the country – they're everywhere, from small towns to the capital – and counting the vast sums of money that pimps make on the back of these modern-day slaves. Sensibly, his work wasn't shelved, because Prime Time: Profiting from Prostitution(RTÉ1, Tuesday) was an important eye-opener into a deeply exploitative business.
Maguire trailed a Romanian man who, it was claimed, moves prostitutes around the country each week. These young foreign women work 14-hour days, every day, and are effectively imprisoned in his apartments. The reason for the weekly movements – or internal trafficking of the women – is that Irish men like the variety, so it makes business sense.
The women Maguire talked to were frightened, powerless and desperately vulnerable. One of his team went undercover, advertising herself on a website that features 700 prostitutes, all of whom appear to be independent operators but are not. In five days she had 350 calls – that's 70 a day from Irish men to one woman, looking for sex. "What's the cheapest you charge?" is a popular question. Pretty Womanit ain't.
Maguire estimated that the website alone rakes in an average of €70,000 a week in advertising from women or their pimps. Maguire did what Prime Time Investigates did best – picked away at a scab to see what was underneath – leaving the viewer with a sense of outrage. It was hard to look at, but it had to be seen.
THE HILARIOUS ANDaward-winning bilingual drama Rásaí na Gaillimhe(TG4, Wednesday) returned for a second series this week, and this time former government minister Ultan Keane (Don Wycherley) is down on his luck and out of favour with the taoiseach, the party and his wife. Wycherley is horribly familiar as the cute-hoor government minister, all crumpled swagger and petulance and oblivious to the fact that the limo culture he so loved is over. His one hope is that his former sidekick, party fixer Creed (Tom Ó Súilleabháin), can help him.
This series has the same basic shape as the first – the action takes place during Galway race week – and the seeds of several plots were sown, including a bent racehorse trainer, a criminal who should be dead but appears not to be, and three eejits heading for Galway for a stag party.
Supt Siobhán Harte (Carrie Crowley) is the voice of reason trying to keep a lid on the impending chaos, though even she has her problems with the arrival of her crusty brother, “a hash head” (it really is bilingual).
Rásaí na Gaillimhe 2is also a roll call of our top actors, including Eamonn Hunt, Owen Roe and Donncha Crowley, who all seem to having a great time, which makes it infectious.
A MUST-SEE FORcrime fans is Unexpected Death(BBC1, Tuesday), a three-part series following the work of a coroner's court in west London. It's like CSIand all the rest, except it's very real – the camera got amazing access – and it's not for the squeamish, what with the noise of the autopsies and the findings (the story of the mouse discovered inside a body was particularly gruesome), though the cool professionalism made it clear it's all in day's work for the pathologist and the mortuary manager. And the coroner – posh, stern Alison Thompson, in her chic pinstripe suit and sports car – is more fabulous than anyone in any of the fictional series.
Get stuck into . . .
What happened after the cameras left: in Baka: A Cry from the Rainforest(BBC2, Friday), Phil Agland revisits the Baka Pygmy family he filmed 25 years ago for his Bafta-winning film Baka: People of the Rainforest.
