Pick of the weekDancing with the StarsSunday, RTÉ One, 6.30pm
As we lift our groggy heads after the Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebration, it feels like we’ve been velcroed to our couch, and it’s gonna take a heavy crane to lift us out of our post-festive season torpor. So what better way to liven up yourself for the new year than with a bit of rumba, merengue and cha-cha-cha? The new season of Dancing With the Stars gets off on the good foot, with a new batch of celebrity contestants, along with some new faces among the judges, presenters and professional dancers.
The big news is that Strictly Come Dancing star Oti Mabuse is stepping in as head judge, taking over from Lorraine Barry, who stepped down from the show to pursue other projects. She’ll be bringing some Strictly glitz to Montrose (not that DWTS needs it) and also her serious expertise and sparkling personality as she joins Brian Redmond, Karen Byrne and Arthur Gourounlian on the judging panel. And Laura Fox is filling in as co-presenter with Jennifer Zamparelli while Doireann Garrihy is off on maternity leave. Meanwhile, three new dance professionals – Arianna Favaro, Leonardo Lini and James Cutler – will be making the stars look good on the dance floor.
Oh, yes, the stars. What about the stars, I hear you ask with barely contained excitement. Well, we’re in for a treat this year as the Paudfather himself aka Traitors Ireland contestant Paudie Moloney swaps deception for dancing as he goes for the glitterball trophy. Remember, Paudie, hips don’t lie. Also in this year’s celeb troupe is Nationwide presenter Anne Cassin, Eurovision winner Niamh Kavanagh, Rose of Tralee Katelyn Cummins, Fair City actor Stephanie Kelly, comedian and actor Michael Fry and singer Tolu Makay, plus a few other famous faces I’m sure you’ll know.
And even more excitement: this year DWTS will feature its first women same-sex pairing, when podcaster Amber Wilson (sister of Vogue Williams) and Alex Vladimirov pair up. This is also the show’s first double same-sex pairing, as singer-songwriter Brian Kennedy pairs up with James Cutler.
HighlightsRoom to ImproveSunday, RTÉ One, 9.30pm
Deirdre and Kieran Kelly with Dermot Bannon on
RTÉ show Room to Improve
Dermot Bannon is back to bring his vision and flair to a mix of home improvement projects, but with building and renovation costs going through the roof, some of the celebrity architect’s big ideas might have to be brought back down to earth. Four homeowner families will feature in series 17, with a mix of homes that include a 1990s semidetached and a small ex-council terraced home. The budgets will range from €200,000 to an eye-watering €350,000 – god be with the days when you could refurbish your home and still have change from 100 grand. Keeping costs in check as usual will be quantity surveyor Claire Irwin, who will work with Bannon and the homeowners to make the hard choices and difficult decisions while still trying to make the changes their home needs to suit their lifestyle – and still have a few bob left to live on. Episode one features Deirdre and Kieran Kelly from Clonsilla, empty nesters who are moving from a big house to a small semi-d they’ve held on to for 20 years, but which needs extra space for entertaining friends plus a mancave for Kieran. So it’s a bit of an “upsize-downsize”.
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Lynley Monday, BBC One, 8.30pm
Lynley TV show. DI Thomas Lynley (Leo Suter) and DS Barbara Havers (Sofia Barclay). Photograph: Jonathan Hession/BBC/Playground TV
Telly history is filled with outlandishly mismatched detective partnerships, but this one takes the petit four. Detective Inspector Tommy Lynley is a posh cop thrown among the working-class wolves in this new adaptation of the popular novels by Elizabeth George. Leo Suter from Sanditon stars as this latest iteration of the crime-solving aristo trying to fit in with the common cops in the Three Counties Major Incident team. He may have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he’s no snob, and soon proves worth his weight in gold to the team. He’s partnered up with down-to-earth detective sergeant Barbara Havers (Sofia Barclay), but the two cops from opposite sides of the class divide share a burning desire to see justice done, and no surprise to find they make a formidable investigative duo. But Lynley’s boss, Detective Chief Inspector Brian Nies (Daniel Mays) sees Lynley as a threat, not just because he’s higher up on the social ladder, but also a lot higher up in the IQ department. Irish actor Niamh Walsh also stars as a former Oxford classmate of Lynley’s.
On the Beat Monday, RTÉ One, 9.35pm
On The Beat, series 2. Photograph: RTÉ
There’s no doubt about it – police work has become infinitely more challenging for An Garda Síochána in recent years. The second series of On the Beat brings us back behind the scenes as the Garda gets on with the tough job of law enforcement, dealing head-on with gangland crime, drug-dealing and armed robbery. We’re thrown in to the deep end in this first episode, as the Garda’s Limerick Drugs Unit carries out dangerous operations to tackle the city’s notorious criminal gangs controlling the illegal drugs trade. The series takes us inside the Garda stations and control centres, and takes us along as the team carries out drug raids. Further episodes will bring us insights into Garda operations in Monaghan and Waterford.
High Road, Low Road Tuesday, RTÉ One, 7.00pm
High Road Low Road. Karen Byrne and James Patrice in Klaipeda, Lithuania. Photograph: RTÉ
The celebrity travel show with a cruel twist starts a new nine-part series, and there’s no shortage of famous faces willing to take a gamble and see if they get the luxury break with all the trimmings, or a low-budget trip with all the extras pared away. Two celebs set off for the same destination, where they will have very different experiences depending on whether they pull the short or long straw. Will resentment brew as one star stays in a palatial hotel while the other makes do with a cheap b & b? Among the celebrity pairings are: Daniel and Majella O’Donnell, who visit Zadar in Croatia, where they try their hand at white-water rafting and lace making; singers Leslie Dowdall and Flo McSweeney, who fly down to Cape Town; and singer Erica-Cody and Love Island star Greg O’Shea, who go scuba diving and horse riding in Chania, Crete. First up are Dancing with the Stars judge Karen Byrne and presenter James Patrice, who go canoeing in Klaipeda, Lithuania.
Neven’s English Food Tour Wednesday, RTÉ One, 8.30pm
Neven’s English Food Tour. Photograph: RTÉ
Chef Neven Maguire has been to some far-flung places in his quest to find great food, but this could his most exotic destination: the northeast of England. Titter ye not, as a famous English comedian once said. Maguire discovers hidden artisan delights in such places as Newcastle, Northumberland and County Durham, and encounters recipes he’s never tasted before. This is, says Maguire, the first food and travel programme made for Irish TV that’s based entirely in the UK. “but I am sure it won’t be the last”. In Newcastle, Maguire climbs to the top of the city centre’s 847-year-old main tower, getting a great view over the river Tyne and its seven bridges, including the Tyne Bridge, which, along with Sydney Harbour Bridge, was designed by Dorothy Buchanan. Maguire also meets a foodie hero of his, Terry Laybourne, Newcastle’s first Michelin-starred chef, at Laybourne’s pub The Broad Chare, where he samples such traditional Geordie bar snacks as crispy pigs’ ears and Scotch eggs made with haggis. Yummy. Maguire also chats to writer Colin Young, who wrote a biography of Ireland’s most beloved hero from England’s northeast, Jack Charlton.
Can You Keep a Secret? Wednesday, BBC One, 9.30pm
TV show Can You Keep A Secret? People: Debbie (Dawn French), William (Mark Heap). Photograph: Alistair Heap/BBC/Big Talk Studios
Dawn French and Mark Heap head up a new six-part comedy series that could well have been inspired by real-life events. French plays recently widowed grandmother Debbie Fendon, who approaches life the same way she approaches a game of lawn bowls: grab it by the you-know-whats. Debbie’s husband William (Heap) has just passed away, and their son Harry (Craig Roberts) is devastated, but comforted by the knowledge that a payout from his dad’s life insurance will ensure he his wife Neha (Mandip Gill) and their young family are well set up. There’s just one problem: William is not actually dead, but hiding out in the couple’s loft until the insurance pays out. Debbie and William swear Harry to secrecy, but what happens if Neha, who happens to be a cop, finds out what her in-laws are up to?
PatienceWednesday, Channel 4, 9pm
Ella Maisy Purvis returns as autistic woman Patience, who works in the criminal records department of the York police – and whose talent for spotting hitherto-unseen connections and patterns in unsolved murder cases sees her drafted somewhat reluctantly on to the investigations team. Patience doesn’t like being touched or taken out of her routine, and no surprise to find the series has been criticised for its stereotypical depiction of people with autism. In the second series, Patience is navigating new love with her colleague Elliot (Tom Lewis) and dealing with a new boss, Detective Inspector Frankie Monroe (Jessica Hynes). The two initially clash, but when a celebrity photographer is found dead with a stake through his heart in what looks like a scene from a vampire movie, Frankie soon realises she might need the unique insight that apparently only autistic people like Patience, and no one else in the world, can bring.
Any Given Day: Cork University HospitalWednesday, RTÉ One, 9.35pm
Every day in Cork University Hospital, lives are saved – and some are lost – as the staff of 4,000 work hard to look after patients and deal with emergencies in one of Ireland’s busiest hospitals. In the first episode, cyclist Barry has been brought into the emergency department following a collision with a car on the Beara Peninsula, and Dr Oge Iwegbulem will have to assess the level of trauma to his head, spine, chest, abdomen and pelvis. Expectant mother Caroline, who has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, is in for her 30-week scan, and consultant oncologist Dr Richard Bambury must work out a safe and effective treatment her and her baby.
Black Ops Thursday, BBC One, 9.30pm
Black Ops Series 2.Dom (Gbemisola Ikumelo) and Kay (Hammed Animashaun). Photograph: BBC/James Stack
Hapless cops Dom and Kay are back for a perilous new police operation in the second series of the comedy thriller series starring Hammed Animashaun, Gbemisola Ikumelo and Akemnji Ndifornyen, and created by Ikumelo and Ndifornyen. Having been drafted into the undercover squad and survived, community support officers Dom and Kay now find themselves working for MI5, but they seem to be doing more admin than actual spying. “Not everyone can be James Bond,” they’re told. But when they meet glamorous spy Steve (Ed Speleers), the pair find themselves involved in a dangerous mission that’s way above their pay grade. Annette Badland, Cathy Tyson and Nigel Havers are among the guest cast for series two.
StreamingBeast GamesFrom Wednesday, January 7th, Prime Video
The Beast is back with a new series of his global gameshow, which broke records for the number of contestants (1,000) and size of the cash prize ($5 million). MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, is a household name to millennials and Gen Zers thanks to his viral YouTube videos, in which he sets challenges such as filling a friend’s house with 10 million Lego bricks, playing Battleship with real ships, and going up to the same fast-food drive-through 1,000 times. The first series of Beast Games, based loosely on Squid Game, was not exactly highly acclaimed, but it proved a huge hit. The second series sees brains pitted against brute force, with 100 of the world’s strongest people facing off against 100 of the smartest. For all of them, going hell for leather to win that $5 million is a no-brainer.
His & HersFrom Thursday, January 8th, Netflix
“There are two sides to every story … which means someone is always lying,” goes the intriguing tagline of this six-episode thriller starring Tessa Thompson and Jon Bernthal, based on the novel by Alice Feeney. Thompson plays Anna Andrews, a broadcast journalist whose career as a news anchor in Atlanta, Georgia, is going down the tubes. Bernthal plays her separated husband, Jack Harper, a detective in the sheriff’s office in the small town of Dahlonega. When a woman is found murdered, Jack is assigned to the case, and Anna, suspecting there’s more to the case than meets the eye, persuades her boss to send her to cover the story. It soon becomes clear that everyone has a different story to tell, and believing the wrong one might get you killed.
Tehran, season threeFrom Friday, January 9th, Apple TV+
Niv Sultan returns as the Mossad hacker and agent Tamar in the third season of the Israeli political-espionage thriller. The world has changed utterly since the second series aired, in 2022, but the propulsive storyline of this acclaimed drama, a sort of Israeli take on Homeland, drives ahead regardless. The tension and suspense are ramped up as Tamar, working undercover in the Iranian capital to sabotage the regime’s nuclear-weapons programme, finds herself on her own after losing her closest allies and the support of her Mossad bosses. Season two featured Glenn Close as the formidable Marjan Montazeri. This series features Hugh Laurie as a nuclear inspector who seeks Tamar’s help. A fourth series of Tehran is in production despite the ever-present danger of it being overshadowed by real-world events.
A Thousand Blows, season twoFrom Friday, January 9th, Disney+
Seconds out … Stephen Knight, the Peaky Blinders writer, is back for another round of the series set in the cut-throat world of bare-knuckle boxing in Victorian London. Erin Doherty returns as the gangster godmother Mary Carr, leader of the notorious Forty Elephants all-woman crime gang. Stephen Graham is back as shady impresario “Sugar” Goodson, and Malachi Kirby reprises his role of Jamaican immigrant and fighter Hezekiah Moscow. It’s a year after the events in series one, and Hezekiah has had all the fight knocked out of him, while Sugar is knocking back the booze to beat the band. When Mary reappears in Wapping and announces that she’s reassembling the Forty Elephants, it’s the signal for another bout of heists, fights, double-dealing and double-crossing.
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