Loads of new shows to pore over this week – including some US drama and two new Irish fly-on-the-wall documentary series about life in Ireland in 2014.
Reviewed: The Leftovers (Tuesdays, Sky Atlantic); Legends (Wednesdays, Sky 1); The Strain (Wednesdays, Watch); Connected (Monday-Thursday, RTÉ 2); Darndale: the Edge of Town (Mondays, TV3)
This time of the year is the most intense period for devoted telly-watchers as a batch of brand new and returning shows jockey for position, not just in the TV schedules, but for a place in people's lives. A good start, positive reviews, word of mouth and social media can combine to make a new show a hit, restore an ailing series, or set a programme on a collision course with oblivion.
A fair few new shows took off over the last few week or so and it was quite a mixed bag in terms of US imports. First up, The Leftovers (Tuesdays, Sky Atlantic), which looked very promising thanks to the almost endless promotion. You think: if they're going to plug it that much, they must be confident.
This HBO drama was created by Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta, the former being one of the main people behind Lost, while the latter wrote the novel that inspired the show. Starting with the sudden and completely inexplicable disappearance of 2% of the world's population, the story shifts three years after what's subsequently called The Sudden Departure, as the remaining population of Mapleton struggle with life in the wake of the traumatic event.
Police Chief Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux), has to deal with mysterious happenings in the town, his two rebelling teenage children, as well as a chain-smoking, non-speaking cult called the Guilty Remnant that includes Laurie (Amy Brenneman), a self-proclaimed prophet named Holy Wayne (Paterson Joseph), local preacher the Reverend Matt Jamison (Christopher Eccleston), and Mayor Lucy Warburton (Amanda Warren).
Like most pilots, there's a lot going on here, but in a nutshell it's about how the various townsfolk are coming to terms – or not – with the mysterious loss of so many loved ones. Unlike other shows, this isn't about a zombie or alien invasion, or a Lost-like random coming together of people, but about absence and loss. It's going to take a few episodes to see how this one goes, but the cast is strong and the concept's brave.
The second episode moves things on a little - like Liv Tyler's Megan Abbott beginning her initiation into the Guilty Remnant - and I think this could be quite a good tale of damaged people and possible redemption. Or it could turn into something as awful as The River. Fingers crossed, as usual.
Much more straightforward but also shrouded in mystery is Legends (Wednesdays, Sky 1). Starring Sean Bean as an expert undercover FBI agent Martin Odum, he's a man of many faces, voices and nervous ticks – but who is he really?
Early on Odum is approached by a mystery man who tells him that he's not who he is. Of course, your man gets murdered just before Odum arrives at a train station to meet him. However, the set-up is as straightforward as can be as our hero doesn't know what's real or not, maybe even his ex-wife and their son aren't who they seem. If you're looking for fun, switch-off TV laced with paranoia, this could be it. Much depends on how they add layers to the, eh, legend.
And so to another new US show, and yet another mystery. The Strain (Wednesdays, Watch) was promoted as something of a horror-fest. However, the feature-length pilot was quite tame by current standards, and mildly horrific compared to the gore porn of Hannibal. But it was an intriguing start and that's far more interesting than exploding eyeballs.
Created by Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro and crime writer Chuck Hogan, a planeload of mostly dead passengers (four later revive) arrives in New York and baffles Dr Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll) and the Center for Disease Control as they investigate the mystery.
In steps pawnbroker and vampire hunter Abraham Setrakian (David Bradley), a man who's kind of a gothic Eleanor Rigby, as he keeps a heart in a jar by the door. He knows what's going on here, and it's a very nasty parasite that sucks the life out of humans with inordinate ease.
Oddly enough, the sumptuously-shot pilot never really added up to more than the sum of its parts or skimmed far below the surface. That meant a teeny, weeny trace of disappointment for me, but the upside is that it covered a lot of bases and should allow the show to take off pretty quickly in future weeks.
Finally, two documentary-type programmes offering complete contrasts in style and delivery, while both offering fascinating insights into the way modern life is lived in Ireland in 2014.
Connected (Monday-Thursday, RTÉ 2) is one of the many new, home-produced shows of the new season on the revamped RTÉ 2, and features the lives of six women trying to get by in Ireland in 2014.
Those involved are quite different, both in terms of their personalities, lifestyles, and experiences, which makes Connected pretty much compulsive viewing. The girls range from Venetia, a 40-year-old radio producer struggling to make ends meet with her husband and family, to Nicole, a 20-year-old, law-studying model who seems to be living out a high-maintenance soap opera in her head.
Everyone's story has its attraction but heads and shoulders above the rest is Elayne Harrington aka rapper Temper-Mental Miss Elayneous. Okay, she may be more of a performer than most of the participants (well, bar pole dancer Kate McGrew), but she's got a great attitude, looks fantastic, and has endured a tough life without resorting to soul-destroying cynicism. She's like a young, Dub version of Debbie Harry and just oozes energy and life. She's my new hero figure.
Darndale: the Edge of Town (Mondays, TV3) was far from the judgmental reality shows of recent times, and was quite poignant in places. There was a pre-screening fear that the series would concentrate on drugs and crime, but what it showed in its opening episode was a number of people, on the very edge of society, trying to sort out their lives and improve themselves.
Stephen Clinch was an obvious choice, as the real-life junkie and Mountjoy season ticket-holder switched to acting and recently played Fran's rival Noelie in Love/Hate. Best of all though was teenage mother Gemma, who seems to be holding many lives together with a mixture of stoicism and enthusiasm. You'd have to be made of stone not to feel for her and wish her well; she's doing her growing-up at a rapid pace. And she just gets on with it, Irish mammy-style.
Not that much has changed in Ireland, really, over the last 100 years.
John Byrne
