Doctor NO
1. DOCTOR FOSTER
TRUST me, it gives me absolutely no pleasure to put this programme on the naughty step.
I absolutely loved the first series of Doctor Foster. The fact that it was totally unrealistic and, indeed, completely bonkers right from the start was part of the fun.
I’ll happily admit that I even enjoyed much of the second season, even as the storylines got increasingly hard to swallow.
But the finale was just plain ridiculous as Doctor F (Suranne Jones) gazed at the camera with a demented look in her eyes and pleaded for the return of her teenage son, who had sensibly done a runner.
‘Tom, I love you, I’m sorry, and I’m here,’ she whimpered. ‘I’ll always be here waiting, when you want to come back. Whenever you want to come back.’ My advice? Stay where you are, Tom.
2. ASSASSINS: IRELAND’S CONTRACT KILLERS
QUITE how this show got the go-ahead is beyond me. I don’t doubt for a moment that there is an interesting and illuminating series to be made on the subject, but this certainly wasn’t it.
The fact that is was fronted by Donal MacIntyre, a man whom I’ve always found difficult to take seriously, was hardly a great start.
His overblown introduction to each instalment announced that Ireland is a ‘Mecca for assassins’, ‘one of the contract killing centres of the planet’ and has ‘one of the highest rates of gangland assassinations in the developed world’.
But the really abominable thing was the involvement of Professor David Wilson, a Scottish criminologist, who came up with all sorts of implausible explanations for the manner in which certain hitmen behave.
It was completely unconvincing and, for want of a better expression, an utter load of tosh. The most depressing thing is that Professor Wilson is intelligent enough to know that. This programme was cheap, cynical nonsense.
3. THE TOMMY TIERNAN SHOW
LOOK, I’m happy to lay my cards on the table and admit that I have always found Tommy Tiernan, pictured, about as funny as undergoing root canal surgery without anaesthetic. But I accept that I am probably in the minority on that front. What I still can’t understand is how this programme made it onto the schedules at all.
It started off as a radio production and, after a TV pilot in 2016, became a six-part series at the start of this year. According to the official RTÉ account, it was ‘an improvised chat show in which neither the host or the audience knows the identity of the guests until they walk out on stage’.
Fair enough, I suppose, except for the fact that the host didn’t even seem to know who half the guests were even after they’d introduced themselves. So what we ended up with were pointless interviews interspersed with streamof-consciousness rants from El Tommo. Not for me, thanks.
4. KAT & ALFIE: REDWATER
BY any standards, it is a very long time indeed since I was a regular EastEnders viewer.
We’re talking about the days when Nasty Nick Cotton was spreading misery, Arthur Fowler was having his prolonged breakdown and Angie Watts was frequently nose-down in a vat of vodka.
So I didn’t come with any great expectations to Kat & Alfie: Redwater (pictured), a spin-off series from the Albert Square manor. Which, as it turned out, was just as well.
It kicked off with Kat Moon (Jessie Wallace) arriving in the southeast of Ireland in search of the son she gave up for adoption when she was a teenager.
From the moment we arrived upon a merry pub scene with locals swilling pints of porter like there was no tomorrow, it was clear that we were going to see cliché heaped upon cliché.
Worse than that, Kat’s son turned out to be the local priest, a chap whose pastoral work included a spot of murder and arson. Truly woeful stuff.
5. DAVID McWILLIAMS’ IRELAND
MUCH as I would like to remember a time before David McWilliams, it is almost impossible to do so. It seems like he has been around forever with his floppy hair, feeble analogies and smug expression.
But it is the clipped delivery and the voice clearly in love with its own sound that grate on my nerves the most.
This four-part series began by looking at the housing market. Never shy about letting the Great Unwashed know what he thinks, David, pictured, kicked off by treating us to a lengthy monologue on the subject.
By the time he’d finished, I reckon I could have read War and Peace cover to cover at least twice. Even worse, though, there were desperately unfunny contributions from the shouty comedian Andrew Maxwell.
I’d rather stick rusty knitting needles in my ears than sit through a moment of this rubbish again.
RONAN’S COLUMN RETURNS AFTER CHRISTMAS