Pick of the week
Hector OZ/NZ
Thursday, TG4, 9.30pm
While the whole country has been arguing over who is best qualified to represent Ireland on the international stage, Hector Ó hEochagáin has been getting on with the job, travelling the world and working his Irish charms on entire peoples in far-flung lands. You could drop Hector in the most inhospitable place on Earth and within 10 minutes he’d have all the locals under his spell, having the craic and singing Irish songs – and probably making him honorary headman of the tribe.
In this new series, Hector heads on an epic adventure down under to explore Australia and New Zealand, veering off the well-beaten tourist trail to meet real Aussies and Kiwis, including Aboriginal elder Aunty Joy and Maori activist Tame Iti. It’s been nearly 20 years since Hector last visited Australia, but on arrival in Melbourne’s cultural melting pot, he soon gets back in the groove. He visits the old opal-mining town of Coober Pedy, where many of the population live underground to escape the searing heat, and heads to Perth, where many Irish expats have been drawn like moths to a flame. In New Zealand, Hector learns how Maori culture integrates with modern life on the North Island, and experiences the envied west-coaster lifestyle on the South Island.
Highlights
The Unreal
Sunday, RTÉ One, 5.10pm
The Kelly Family are back, just in time for Halloween, and they’re about to encounter another gaggle of ghosts, apparitions and scary spirits from Irish mythology in the new series of the spooky, family-friendly show. In the first series, bored 12-year-old Kevin finds an ancient artefact called a VHS player, complete with a tape of a children’s show from the 1980s. When he plays the tape, however, he unleashes a pooka – a sort of Bosco from the Underworld – who wreaks havoc on the family’s lives.
But the pooka is not the only escapee from 1980s telly – turns out the Kellys themselves are fictional characters from an 80s sitcom, and in series two they’re trying to live normal lives in the 2020s. And what could be more normal than visiting a creepy, dilapidated hotel to attend a 1980s TV convention? It’s not long before more creepy creatures from Irish mythology emerge from the shadows, including a fetch – a sort of ghostly Doppelgänger of Kevin.
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The Unreal has been acclaimed as good, scary family fun that looks at the stresses and demands of modern life though the looking-glass of Irish folklore, so get the family around the telly, turn off the lights, and enjoy the fright night.
Oíche Shamhna: An Ancient Mystery
Sunday, RTÉ One, 7.30pm
Just when and where did Halloween originate? It’s hugely popular in the US, and has taken off in many countries around the world, but who was first to come up with the idea of a night celebrating all things spooky, with people dressing up as ghosts, ghouls and ghastly creatures, and descending on people’s houses to demand treats? This two-part documentary delves into the Irish origins of Halloween – the Samhain festival, the ancient celebration on the threshold of winter. But is there any evidence to back up our claim to have invented Halloween?
The series uses new scientific breakthroughs, along with archaeological discoveries and clues from folklore and mythology to build up the case for Halloween to have originated in ancient Hibernia. Now that we have the ownership issue cleared up, we’ll expect the Taoiseach to arrive at the White House on October 31st with a nice big bowl of hemlock.
Daisy May and Charlie Cooper’s NightWatch
Sunday, BBC One, 9.30pm
The comedy partnership of Daisy May Cooper and her brother Charlie Cooper reunite for a series that promises to be so funny, it’s scary. Or so scary, it’s funny – take your pick. The siblings have always been fascinated by the paranormal – blame their parents, who let them stay up late watching horror movies when they were kids. The upshot of it now is that they need something stronger than slasher movies to give them a terror-thrill. So in this new series, they challenge themselves to stay the night in some of Britain’s most haunted places. Can they make it to the next morning without getting the living daylights scared out of them, or without making each other laugh so much they puke? Along the way, they learn lots of spooky facts about the place they’re staying – and learn a few things about each other too. Their first port of call is a disused prison in Gloucester, where they spend the night in a cell and hope to god they’re the only inmates there.
Trigger Point
Sunday, UTV, 9pm
Lana Washington is a maverick bomb-disposal expert – or EXPO – who doesn’t like to follow orders. Caution isn’t in her vocabulary – she’ll charge right into the danger zone and risk everything to disarm an explosive device or take down a terrorist. It’s not quite by the book, and the wired-up storylines are faintly ridiculous, but it’s worked for viewers, who have made the Trigger Point one of the most-watched series on ITV over the past couple of years. Vicky McClure returns as Lana in a third series of TP, and this time she and her bomb-disposal team face a threat from a bomber who is targeting individuals in what looks like a vendetta. The team will have to work fast if they are to outsmart this bomber before they can claim their next victim. “We want to make this new series even more exciting, keep everyone on the edge of their seats,” says McClure. We’ll be seated and ready.
Once Upon a Time in Space
Monday, BBC Two, 9pm
So, what’s it like actually being in space? Since the dawn of space travel, fewer than 700 people have actually left the Earth’s atmosphere, and this documentary series, presented by James Bluemel, charts the story of human space flight from the perspective of those who’ve been up there. The four-part series uses unseen archive footage and personal accounts from pioneering astronauts and cosmonauts, to give a new perspective of space travel, and also a new perspective on the changing world below. With a new space race to Mars in the offing, this series looks at how we got to this stage in space travel, and where we are going next.
IT: Welcome to Derry
Monday, Sky Atlantic & Now, 9pm
Okay, calm down, don’t get so excited. This is not a Stephen King-meets-Derry Girls spin-off – although that sounds like it would be great scary-funny craic. This Derry is not the town in Northern Ireland we know and love so well, but of course the fictional Derry, Maine, which has featured in several of King’s novels – including IT – and is modelled on the author’s own hometown of Bangor, Maine. It’s your typical telly American small town, which means, of course, that there are typically dark goings-on beneath the picket-fenced, lawn-sprinklered surface.
The series is a prequel to the box-office hit horror movies IT and IT: Chapter Two, set in the 1960s, two decades before the evil entity calling himself Pennywise the Dancing Clown proved that coulrophobia was definitely not an irrational fear. It’s an origin story of sorts, delving deep into the sewers of Derry to get to the dark heart of what spawned this psychotic Pierrot. The good news is that Bill Skarsgård will be returning as Pennywise, and the bad news – for the townspeople – is that a lot of folk are about to die screaming before this nine-parter is even halfway through.
Heat My Home
Tuesday, RTÉ One, 8pm
Gas and electricity costs aren’t getting any lower, and many Irish homeowners are opting to retrofit their houses to save energy and bring down their heating bills. But what kind of retrofit should you choose, and how much savings could you expect to make once the retrofit is in? Builder, designer and engineer Kieran McCarthy, previously seen on Cheap Irish Homes, presents a brand new series in which he guides homeowners through the whole retrofitting rigmarole, cutting through the technical jargon and taking the mystery out of making energy upgrades. In the first episode, retired speech and language therapist Sylvia Thompson is looking to turn her chilly 1950s cottage in Tralee into a warm, cosy, sustainable home, which will involve digging up floors and disposing of an old and very inefficient fossil fuel oil burner.
Streaming
Down Cemetery Road
From Wednesday, October 29th, Apple TV+
Fans of Mick Herron, the Slow Horses author, will relish this latest televisual treat, adapted from his novel of the same name, and starring Ruth Wilson and Emma Thompson. It all starts in a quiet suburb of Oxford, where a huge explosion in a house shatters the peace. Neighbour Sarah Tucker (Wilson) and private investigator Zoë Boehm (Thompson) soon become embroiled in a wide-reaching conspiracy, where long-deceased people seem to be mysteriously back from the dead. Worse, there seems to be no shortage of living people suddenly swelling the ranks of the dead. Sarah and Zoë will have to unravel this mystery before they end up among the ex-living.
The Witcher
From Thursday, October 30th, Netflix
Eagle-eyed viewers might notice something different in season four of the fantasy series: Henry Cavill has been replaced by Liam Hemsworth in the role of the titular demon-slayer. Apart from that, it’s business as usual for Geralt of Rivia: lots of nasty, supernatural creatures to fight, and lots of strong women to fight off. The Australian actor takes up the mantle of the Witcher for the last two series, and he’s joined by Anya Chalotra as Yennefer, Freya Allen as Cirilla, and a sprawling cast of characters, plus another new arrival: Laurence Fishburne, playing a charismatic healer and higher vampire named Regis. Will Hemsworth fill Cavill’s big boots as he takes over the iconic role of the monster-masher? We’ve no doubt he’ll crush it.
