TV Review Fionola MeredithBarney the Purple Dinosaur really has an awful lot to answer for. He is the prime exponent of one of caring modern society's deeply held beliefs: that we are - ahhh - all special.
Thanks to the saccharine-tongued T Rex and his ilk, we are awash in a sea of cuddly-wuddly emotional gloop, where no kid can be a loser at sports day (so what that your little darling came last in the sack race, he's just a deferred winner). Of course, not everyone is willing to swallow this bland mush. Remember the central thesis of that brilliant film, The Incredibles - "when everyone is special, no one is?"
Big insight there. And hurrah for Channel 6's new offering, Heroes - starring a host of seemingly ordinary (although inevitably good-looking) folk who possess secret superpowers - which gives a further boot to Barney's sizeable complacent rump.
Heroes lavishly and unashamedly embraces the idea of the Nietzschean übermensch, the superman (or woman, in this case) who transcends the humdrum herd.
Yes, Heroes implies, some people really are more special than others - and how. In fact, in the same way that legions of Lost fans devoured Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman for clues to the drama's circuitous plot after it appeared in one episode, it seems inevitable that devotees of Heroes will soon be grappling with Nietzsche's notion that "man is something which ought to be overcome". Ker-ching! Tip for booksellers: get your stocks of Thus Spake Zarathustra in now.
But let's not get too chinstrokingly philosophical here. We got enough of that in the tiresomely intoned voiceovers that introduced the first two episodes of Heroes, self-importantly droning on about the nature of human existence. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Save it for your Nietzsche study.
Let's skip all that and cut to the exciting bits where Clair, the teenage cheerleader, chucks herself off a bridge, dusts herself off, wrenches her broken bones back into place with a glorious crunching sound and, hey presto, is as good as new. Clair has the magic ability to heal herself, you see. She's got to be a bit of a masochist too.
Why else would she keep whirring her hands to a bloody pulp in the waste disposal unit in her kitchen? Of course, there had to be flying. It's not normal for congressional candidates to take to the air, even in American politics, but that's exactly what Nathan Petrelli, prospective congressman for New York, could do, even while wearing his suit. And yes, there simply must be someone who can manipulate the space-time continuum. You'd be disappointed if there wasn't. Step forward Hiro ("hero", geddit?) Nakamura, a Tokyo computer programmer, who, just by thinking very, very hard and screwing up his face tightly, can transport himself wherever he wants to go in the world.
IT'S CLEAR THAT Heroes suffers from the contemporary curse of plotlines so stuffed with numerous complicated sub-narratives, obscure references and mysterious symbols that the whole fantastic edifice threatens to collapse under its own weight. Still, we'll keep watching because, ever since Superman first pulled on his underpants over his tights, we're endlessly fascinated by the idea that we could achieve god-like powers.
Achieving any kind of connection with God, or Allah, at all, would have satisfied the motley bunch of confused pilgrims who trooped off to a remote Islamic study centre in Andalusia in The Retreat. The six participants varied widely in spiritual fervour, from Aisha Alvi, the 31-year-old barrister who believed in strict Qur'anic observance, to Muddassar, a fast-talking 23-year-old businessman - and religious sceptic - umbilically connected to his mobile phone.
There's always one serial God botherer in these shows. They usually wear quirky hats and are called something a little bit kerrazy like Zoot or Bub. This time the role was filled by Pom, a psychotherapist who's gone through Reiki, Buddhism and Kabbalah in her search for the divine.
Muddassar's obsessive text messaging (he kept nipping out to the minaret during prayers to fire off a few missives) quickly got him into hot water with the director of the Alqueria de Rosales retreat, Abdullah Trevathan.
"It's getting rude," he told Muddassar, a little menacingly, as the party frolicked in a flower-filled hillside in the Andalusian dusk. (They were supposed to be out searching for their "interior landscapes"). You felt that Muddassar had stumbled onto the set of the wrong programme. He really would have been much more at home on The Apprentice, being barked at by Sir Alan Sugar.
Abdullah's relationship with Aisha was rather fraught too. Aren't gurus usually full of spiritual largesse, overflowing with a palpable sense of grace and peace? They are in the movies, anyway.
Abdullah, who wore a constant expression of just holding back an angry outburst, took it seriously amiss when zealous Aisha questioned the veracity of the laidback "classical Islam" practised at the retreat. He instantly had her down as a proponent of "dry, formulaic Islam", a characterisation that the programme-makers appeared to collude in.
Through editorial sleight of hand and cod-sympathetic commentary - "will Aisha be able to embark on a spiritual journey, or will her strong desire to conform to her principles get in her way?" - she was stuffed into the box unmistakeably marked "uptight troublemaker".
Ooh, it would almost make you feel sorry for the Big Brother bullies, wouldn't it? Well, not quite.
SR MARGARET MACCURTAIN'S trip to Spain, in the return of RTÉ Cork's low-budget travel show, Time on their Hands, was pleasingly free of histrionics of any kind, spiritual or otherwise.
In fact, it was as comforting and, it has to be said, as gently soporific as a steaming mug of bedtime cocoa. With only €500 stuffed in her pocket, well-known historian Sr Margaret was off in search of her two top heroines, St Teresa of Avila, and novelist Kate O'Brien, who had a passionate relationship with Castile.
This show, which aimed to "test the imagination and the staying power of people of a certain age", was the antithesis of those glossy travel programmes where brazenly youthful presenters try to make up for in gormless enthusiasm what they lack in articulacy and insight.
Going to Spain with Sr Margaret was a bit like going on holiday with your jolly, well-read granny. You knew you wouldn't be falling out of a Spanish nightclub at 3am with your knickers on your head. On the plus side, there would be lots of educative trips and serious-minded discussion, along with a moderate intake of Rioja. And who wouldn't smile to see Sr Margaret and her cronies Maribel and Pilar, a trio of dignified old ladies toddling comfortably in the footsteps of St Teresa?
THE QUESTION OF personal dignity - and its centrality to our fragile sense of self - haunted the plot of Recovery, an agonising account of the effect that brain injury can have on an individual and his relationships. David Tennant gave an inspired performance as Alan, the victim of a hit and run accident that left his language scrambled, his inhibitions unleashed, and his marriage in tatters.
It was matched by Sarah Parish's poignant portrayal of his wife, Tricia, suddenly transformed into the reluctant carer of a querulous, demanding, overgrown toddler; constantly having to remind herself that this manically cackling man-child who sets fire to the kitchen with the toaster, runs baths to overflowing, and makes his five-year-old son cry with the boisterousness of his play was once a loving partner.
Recovery charted the unravelling of Alan and Tricia's relationship in such a clear-eyed, unsparing way that it was difficult to watch.
"What's going on in your mind?" asked Tricia. "Everything that comes out of my mouth," was the bewildered reply. There were no grandiose, theatrical moments in this drama; instead, we glimpsed only the poignant remnants of a once-contented life. Recovery was a forcible reminder of the necessity to seize the day, to kiss the small joys as they fly by, before we open that door into the dark.
Hilary Fannin is on leave
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