Stars in their eyes

TV REVIEW: Feargal Quinn's Retail Therapy, RTÉ1, Tuesday; Health of the NationRTÉ1,   Wednesday; Off the RailsRTÉ1, Wednesday; Wonders of the Solar System, BBC 2, Sunday; Famous, Rich and JoblessBBC1, Tuesday

A GOOD WEEK to take on the plum job of TV reviewer. Spring is in the air, which makes everything look better, several new programmes hit the airwaves and thanks to an inspired choice of presenter, a spectacular new BBC series managed to make physics interesting on the telly.

Dapper senator and ex-supermarket supremo Feargal Quinn was at Derek and Fionnuala Law’s X-it discount store in Finglas to begin his mission to make over ailing shops. The retail action in the Dublin suburb has moved to the shiny new mega-mall nearby, leaving the old shopping centre in the heart of the village looking desolate.

The Laws have owned the discount store there for 17 years and things were bad. Derek had the hangdog look of a man who has nearly given up, while Fionnuala was all defensive and grumpy. And that was a large part of the reason why Feargal Quinn's Retail Therapyfell so flat. In makeover programmes, you have to somehow emotionally engage with the people involved (oh all right, I mean like them) and start rooting for them. Otherwise, what's the point?

This new series is an Irish version of BBC's brilliant Mary Queen of Shops, in which Mary Portas took on failing businesses. As sharp as her spiky heels, she put the retailers through the wringer, but at the end of each programme you'd be so thrilled for the shopkeepers you'd have a lump in your throat as Mary's success was revealed. Unfortunately, it was all downbeat and dull in Finglas, and the director did a poor job; there was no tension – the lifeblood of reality shows – or even a chance to really understand the Laws and their business.

You didn’t need an MBA to spot a large part of the problem at X-it – the place looked a mess. The camera kept returning to a rancid looking bit of carpet to hammer home the point.

“I don’t know if I can work with his attitude,” carped a tight-lipped Fionnuala. How she could bear working with that carpet was all I could think of.

A NEW RTÉ series borrowing elements from Channel 4's Embarrassing Bodiesis Health of the Nationwith doctors Mark Hamilton and Nina Byrnes setting up clinics in various towns, starting with Sligo, and inviting the public in for a free consultation.

Pixie McKenna, the Irish medic from Embarrassing Bodies, has said that this sort of thing wouldn't work here because it's a small country and people would be too mortified. Step up taxi driver Emmanuel with his mysterious rash and Noreen and her weepy eye.

Sligo has the highest rate of hospital admissions in the country, with heart disease a particular problem, so the two docs did a special feature on that. As they are both fit, fairly gorgeous and look like advertisements for their own advice, it gave the programme the credibility that Gerry Ryan's recent Operation Transformationseries, covering some of the same ground, somehow lacked.

NO SIGN OF oozing flesh on Off the Railswhich returned for SS10 – that's fashion speak for spring-summer 2010 to us civilians. It's much the same mix as before – it wasn't broken so no need to fix – and stylist Sonya Lennon, who debuted last year, is the brightest new presenter to appear on RTÉ for ages.

Her co-presenter is Brendan Courtney, who handled the makeover of thirtysomething mum, Pearl. It was needed because, as he told us twice, her “essence is being diluted”. Now that would have been one for the doctors in Sligo. There was bit too much of that sort of guff in his script – a pity in a series that works because it has an engagingly down-to-earth approach to fashion. And just so you know, underwear as outerwear is big this season.

EXPLAINING THE IMPORTANCE of the sun in our lives in the new BBC science series Wonders of The Solar System, Prof Brian Cox cheerfully pointed out in his Lancashire accent that "when it goes, it really will be the end of us all". Though no need to panic just yet, as it isn't due to burn out for the next five billion years, give or take. And while the sun is everything to us, it's just one of 200 billion stars – which puts us all into perspective. Brian Cox is a bit of a revelation himself. He's the rock star of physicists – young, super cool and with an effortless way of communicating – and amazingly he really is a rock star, or was anyway. In the 1990s his band D:Ream had a hit with Things Can Only Get Better. It's all light years away from telly's first famous sky watcher, Patrick Moore.

Cox’s boyish wonder at seeing a total eclipse in India was infectious – “It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen,” he beamed – as was his pure joy in sitting in the desert measuring the kilowatt output of the sun with a tin can of water, a thermometer and an umbrella. “See, that’s why I love physics,” he said.

While the facts about the sun were mesmerising, equally eye-popping was the budget for this five-part series. In the first hour Cox traversed the globe filming in the Amazon basin, the Arctic circle, California and India, and the photography, with swooping aerial shots and panoramic vistas, was stunning. One to set the recorder for.

REALLY, YOU'D GET tired of celebs grabbing screentime by doing things that aren't their jobs, although it is one thing doing some dancing on ice – which is entertaining and a bit daft – it's another pretending to be unemployed, which is patronising and pointless. In Famous, Rich and Jobless, four celebs – every day that label gets stretched even further – Larry Lamb (last seen acting dead in EastEnders), gardener Diarmuid Gavin, Meg Matthews (ex-wife of Noel Gallagher) and Emma (niece of Camilla) Parker Bowles swapped their real lives for the experience of living on the dole in some of Britain's unemployment blackspots. For four whole days.

“I’m apprehensive about how alone I’ll feel, cut off from all my support systems,” said the often teary Gavin, sounding like a man about to be sent to Guantánamo. He was going to Hackney. Before being dispatched to their new digs, the four were given bags of second-hand clothes which they handled gingerly. Hilariously, only Matthews, who emerged as the star of the programme for her friendly, can-do attitude, looked much different when changed into the Oxfam kit.

Their task was to find work and three of them did – having a camera crew over your shoulder as you ask probably helps. Lamb wasn't bothered, content with his £10 a day benefit budget and walking on the beach. Reminded that he should be job hunting, he channelled Archie in EastEndersand snarled "Patronising bullshit! Excuse my French. I don't want to go drifting round knocking on doors, because I've got enough grub in my belly. Forget about it. Not doing it."

It was a two-part programme. On Wednesday, the four celebs had to help four real unemployed people find work. Inspired by Lamb’s reaction, I didn’t bother tuning in.

tvreview@irishtimes.com

FEMALE DEFICIT DISORDER: CURRENT AFFAIRS PANELS' EQUALITY ISSUES:

Monday was International Women’s Day, not that there much sign of it in the schedules, though Channel 4 released the results of research revealing that for every woman on British telly there are two men, and only four in 10 women on TV are over 40.

While the research was conducted across the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five and Sky1, from where I’m sitting it looks the same on our stations.

Over the past two years there’s rarely been a news bulletin that hasn’t had an economist, a stockbroker or a business analyst on to explain the latest fiscal mess. But how many were women? You wouldn’t need too many fingers on one hand to count them, and it’s not that they don’t enter those professions, have no opinions or would rather talk about shoes. They’re simply not asked.

The research found that women are invited on as contributors on fact-based programmes only 34 per cent of the time. On The Frontlineon Monday (RTÉ1) the all-male panel discussed cabinet reshuffles, last week the all-male panel discussed head shops and another all-male panel talked about Nama.

On Monday, over on TV3, the Tonight with Vincent Brownepanel was – and it's so rare it took some time to adjust my astonished eyes – made up of more women than men. But by Tuesday, Browne's panel was back to the male-dominated two-to-one ratio – "normal" service restored, then.