The fish out of water TV format has become so ubiquitous of late that it’s hard to remember where it all began, although it was probably down to Wife Swap. Read more...

The world’s only school to boast two Nobel prize winners among their alumni was chronicled in a documentary film written and directed by Tom Collins, screened on RTE 1 on Tuesday night. Read more...

Another TV show, another twist on the social tourism motif. We’ve had Wife Swap, The Secret Millionaire, celebrities living on the street, rich families staying with poor families and any number of other versions. Read more...

Whereas the US approach to political drama has tended to concentrate on the fictional, its history on this side of the Atlantic has a strong tradition of dealing with real events and real people. Following in the footsteps of The Deal and The Queen comes Channel 4’s Mo, as refreshingly honest a portrait of the late Mo Mowlam as the woman herself deserved. Read more...

A courtroom drama. A wronged wife fighting to provide for her family. A disgraced politician. Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. Read more...

As the craze for makeover shows reached a peak in the first decade of the twenty first century, it took five gay men from New York to give the genre a shot in the arm. Read more...

We should always perhaps be sceptical when we are told that the latest US import to Irish screens is ‘a must see’ or ‘the hottest show on US TV’. We’ve been burnt that way before. Read more...

Doctor Who may have come and gone in a confusing mass over Christmas, but that hasn’t stopped the BBC catering for the more discerning sci-fi and fantasy fan with the return of two of its more interesting series, one home grown and one blockbuster from the US. Read more...

Doctor Who may have come and gone in a confusing mass over Christmas, but that hasn’t stopped the BBC catering for the more discerning sci-fi and fantasy fan with the return of two of its more interesting series, one home grown and one blockbuster from the US. Read more...

The influence of RTE's six part 2005 series Pure Mule is one that has been felt across the station's drama output for the past four years, Read more...

It may be only a TV show at the end of the day but, as Gavin and Stacey (BBC1), returns for a third - and reportedly final - series, the pressure is to a certain extent on. Read more...

Any sketch show – which to all intents and purposes The Savage Eye certainly is – is prone to a shaky beginning but by keeping his focus on one topic throughout the mish-mash of vignettes Dave McSavage’s new series managed to pull off far more hits than misses last night. Read more...

Val Falvey TD RTÉ1, 7.30pmBattle Of The Sexes RTÉ1, 9.30pmA wet and windy weekend will probably be the dominant memory for most of the island (well, Read more...