Drama, therapy and food on TV3's menu

TV3’S FIRST home-produced drama, Deception, heads up the channel’s broadest ever autumn schedule, with other debuts including its first comedy series and its first nature show.

Deception, a six-part drama described by TV3 chief executive David McRedmond as “really important” for the station, “presents a view of post-Celtic Tiger Ireland”, according to TV3. The partially publicly funded show is set in a “semi-ghost estate” in Galway, with its cast of characters including a failed property developer and a murderer.

Also counting among the 50 new programmes and 80 returning series slated for broadcast is the six-part On the Couch. The “tragi-comedy” is created and performed by Gary Cooke and Barbara Bergin, who play three dysfunctional couples embarking on therapy.

A four-part factual series, The Park, filmed over four seasons in Killarney National Park, marks TV3’s first nature show. “There’s very little talking, it’s all about nature – amazing photography,” said TV3 director of programming Ben Frow.

With The Apprentice not returning this season, baking is the new firing as The Great British Bake Off becomes the latest reality format to be adapted for an Irish audience. The Great Irish Bake Off, described by TV3 as its “lead lifestyle series this year”, will be hosted by Anna Nolan, with actor turned food writer Biddy White Lennon on judging duties.

“When she was Maggie in the The Riordans, she was the first character on Irish television to use the contraceptive pill. Now, 30 years later, it turns out there’s a bun in the oven after all,” Mr Frow joked to launch guests at Dublin’s Light House Cinema yesterday.

Take Me Out Ireland and Celebrity Come Dine With Me Ireland return, while there will be both celebrity and regular versions of Alan Hughes’ Family Fortunes.

Al Capone and Boeing aircraft will count among the specialist topics on Junior Mastermind for under-11s.

Next-generation Dallas and the third series of Downton Abbey – which will address “the Irish question” – are the highest-profile drama imports. But it is two TV3-spawned reality formats, Tallafornia and Dublin Wives (formerly known as Dublin Housewives), that are guaranteed to win column inches. Mr Frow promised that the former show, which relocates to the Spanish resort of Santa Ponsa, will be “a little bit racier than last time”.