This is a tough time of year for the telly. Not streaming, mind you, but proper terrestrial telly. There just isn’t much on beyond the usual reality-shows about competitive weaving, home-renovation, or murder (the big three, as they call it). You might find one of those programmes that recaps the news from a previous year, but they’re generally frowned upon in the newspaper business. ‘That’s old news, baby’, we say to the nerds in the archives. They never say anything back (the cowards!).
My absolute favourite show is unfortunately on a season-break at the moment. Like any good soap-opera, it usually airs three times a week, with an omnibus on the weekends, so you can follow every salacious storyline in all its juicy detail. The last season alone saw surprise departures, internal rebellions and plenty of lingering cliff-hangers. Thankfully, ‘Dáil Éireann’ returns to Oireachtas TV this September, so I won’t be left in suspense for too long…
The Real Politick-ians of Leinster House
So, what’s coming up later this year? Well while some attempts were made towards the end of last season to introduce a new Presidency of Europe storyline, it hasn’t really taken off. Seemingly composed of stuffy bureaucratic meetings and the odd traffic disruption, it seems audiences have found this a largely boring and staid affair that probably wasn’t worth all the fuss. Nonetheless, Taoiseach Micheál Martin will likely continue to push this narrative until the bitter end.
Full column in this week’s Print & Digital Edition.
