"I WANTED to find my parents ... and kill them," said Christine Buckley, "for every ounce of pain that I suffered because of them." In a year when news from Belgium chilled the world, the most memorable Irish programme also focused on child abuse. Louis Lentin's Dear Daughter, which told Ms Buckley's story of her time in Goldenbridge orphanage in the 1950s and her subsequent search for her parents, was uneven. But it was unforgettable.
It raised questions of individual and collective guilt, of personal sadism and societal hypocrisy. It raised questions too about RTE's vision of itself as a kind of national thermostat. Lentin's documentary was so strong that a reply from the accused nun, Sister Xaviera, was justified. But, when it came on Prime Time, it was a largely unchallenged 20 minutes of PR. Between Dear Daughter and Prime Time, a chasm yawned. Confusion, not clarity, reigned. RTE played timid.
Still, the case had been opened and apart from the danger of promoting 1990s smugness, television had performed a valuable role. Later in the year, Jimmy McGovern's Hillsborough re opened the story of how, in 1989, 96 football fans had been crushed to death. It too was a dramatised documentary - more fully realised than Dear Daughter and uncompromising in its attack on the official line. In an age of safe and bland TV, Hillsborough was probably the highlight of the year.
Certainly, dramatised documentary was the form of 1996. Conventional drama continued to focus on cops, docs and frocks and really, much of it looked tired. Steve Bochco's Murder One, a 23 part murder mystery fuelled by the O.J. Simpson case, was to be the cop opera of the year. In the end, it proved to be inane and incestuous - celebrity lawyer with celebrity jerks in an epic case of glossy Hollywood masturbation.
Other drama series included Emma, Moll Flanders and Poldark (all frock operas). Rhodes was the BBC's £10 million drama blockbuster, but it began in a swirl of dust in which many opening episode viewers were lost without trace. Unlike 1995's Pride and Prejudice, Rhodes did not have an attractive central character. As historical epic, it should have been more sweeping - especially given all the dust - but it was all rather limp and not helped by too many dodgy accents.
The profusion of frock operas, made sexy by taut direction and even tauter bosoms and breeches, continued. Mild smut, given a dash of classic culture, had, with Pride and Prejudice, shown that it could be a ratings topper. But this year's batch was bandwagoning and appeared almost obscenely obvious.
In doc opera, hardy annuals, such as er and Casualty, maintained high ratings. But the most worthwhile was The Fragile Heart, a medical melodrama which explored tensions between surgeons and doctors, science and humanities, East and West and between daddy's despicable girl and mummy's ineffectual boy. Written by Paula Milne, who wrote The Politician's Wife, it could easily have been titled The Surgeon's Wife.
But, even though it was formulaic, it did have something to say. That, ultimately, it came down on the side of the humanities against science was not surprising. It was though, a little simplistic. Still, as a drama of ideas, it did poke its stethoscope in the right places and even though the principal characters were too heavily drawn, such melodrama was excusable given the subject.
Contemporary drama gave us This Life and Our Friends in the North. This Life featured five criminally obnoxious young lawyers living in London. Remember careerist Miles, shag happy Anna, laddish Egg, prim, randy Milly and gay Warren? Over time, they developed the fascination of a carcrash - you couldn't look, but you couldn't quite look away either. But, like the lawyers in Murder One, they were constitutionally prattish.
In contrast, Our Friends in the North seemed human. Well, they did until the story, spanning the lives of four Geordies from the 1960s to the 1990s, hit the 1970s. Then the BBC seemed to raid the wig department from Planet of the Apes. But hair aside, this drama did a commendable job of documenting British politics in the last three decades. It was, like Dear Daughter, regularly uneven. But, unlike so many of the cops, docs and frocks offerings, it was grounded and it was relevant.
Sadly, the same could not be said of Dennis Potter's posthumous dramas, Karaoke and Cold Lazarus. There was much to admire in Karaoke, but too often it was bewilderingly complex. Potter's script seemed self indulgently messianic. Perhaps, given the central metaphor of karaoke - in which you add your own voice to a pre ordained tune - that was unavoidable. Still, in spots, it was a vibrant weed among the plastic flowers of most TV drama.
Cold Lazarus, set 374 years after the death of Daniel Feeld (the hero of Karaoke), was too much like RADA meets Star Trek. But, in casting the arch villains of the future as media magnates, Potter's drama was cautionary. A pity then that it was too rich - overstuffed with the concerns and messages of a dying writer - to be coherent. It's not that television drama cannot cope with complexity. But there's a limit, especially if you want to captivate a mass audience.
In one off drama, perhaps the highlight was The Precious Blood, Graham Reid's play about the Northern Troubles. Its weakness was the inevitability of the ending. A former unionist paramilitary, now turned evangelical preacher, Was befriended the unknowing wife and son of a nationalist he murdered many years earlier. Eventually, all sides discover the truth. As dramas on the North go, this one; was pointed and significant, in spite of predictability eroding much of its dramatic tension.
BUT, for the most part, it was documentary not drama, which justified the TV licence fee this year. Return to the Dying Rooms opened the year on an horrific note. It supplied convincing, if not quite incontrovertible, evidence of China's culling of female babies. In doing so, it set the tone for the grimmest theme of the year - child abuse. With Belgium and Dear Daughter still to come, Return to the Dying Rooms proved to be prophetic.
Equally harrowing was Timewatch: Remember Aberfan. Thirty years on from the disaster which buried alive 116 children and 28 adults, this memorial documentary was strikingly stark. Using long silences and long cuts of archive black and white footage, it was, in its form, like a moving memorial card. Commemorative documentaries, now that television has so much of the past in pictures, are increasingly common. But this one was uncommonly excellent.
Network First: Silent Victims - The Untold Story of the Yorkshire Ripper was startling in its revelations. But, oh, how it could have done with some of the measured understatement of Remember Aberfan. In showing that Peter Sutcliffe was responsible for many more than the 13 murders he admitted to, it was valuable TV. But, in form, it was too much like Crimewatch meets The Rock `n' Roll Years.
On RTE, Donald Taylor Black's Hearts and Souls, rescreened because it had been first shown in a graveyard slot (after the Ireland v Holland European Championship soccer match in November 1995) had the soundbite of the year on all channels. Documenting the PR of the No Divorce campaign, it ended with an unforgettable outburst from the defeated Una Bhean Mhic Mhathuna: "Go away ... ye wife swappin' sodomites". Splendid.
Intentional comedy was dominated by Father Ted. Ted Heads, in homage to their guru, Father Jack, have taken to shouting "Drink Feck, Girls" and even if the slogan is a little tame in comparison with the "sex `n' drugs `n' rock `n' roll" generations which preceded them, well, it's defining. Originally kind of Irish TV comedy in exile, it's now on RTE. But, in not buying the Channel 4 series in the first place, the home channel showed just how ferociously "timid it is at heart."
But it's the Americans who continue to supply, the sharpest, sit coms. The cutesyness of Friends, in particular, is revolting, but the writing is crafty and penetrating. Frasier, as you'd expect from a son of Cheers, is probably the best of the best, but Grace Under Fire, Seinfeld and Larry Saunders are clever in ways which neither British nor Irish sit coms have managed to emulate.
Back on RTE, Upwardly Mobile, though it remains stagey and soft, is, at least, a significant improvement on previous horror comedies from Montrose. TnaG's C U Burn is pleasantly black, if too constricted, but, in general, there is still a lack of bite in Irish comedy.
THE preferred genre of RTE bosses remains the chat show. Gay Byrne and Pat Kenny continue to snipe at each other - an average year for both of them. The Late Late Show, though it remains watchable, if not, as it was in its heyday, compulsory, was snubbed by politicians early in the year. Gay Byrne wanted to transfer Leinster House to Montrose for a debate on crime. "Undignified," said the politicians, which, though it was true, never stopped them before or since. In the end, the crime special didn't quite work.
For the summer, Kenny Live was replaced by Good Grief Moncrieff, a lift from the land of Letterman. Loud, brash and sometimes hysterical, Sean Moncrieff soldiered through the show's run. But, in spite of energy and commitment, it was all a bit too ropey. Time was when getting a chat show of his/her own was the mark of success for a broadcaster. Now, it's likely to be a burden.
In soap opera, Brookside included storylines about incest and cold turkey; Coronation Street went out four nights a week but continued to shed viewers because it seemed rather cosy and unrealistic Glenroe appears to be fading - overstretching plotlines, losing characters and generally needing a face lift; Fair City has become more solid and EastEnders now features Barbara Windsor, which is taking the Cockney thing a bit too seriously.
Former international swimmer, Gary O'Toole, became a studio sensation as Michelle Smith cruised to glory during the Atlanta Olympics. Euro 96 provided a star pundit in Ruud Gullit and the summer schedules were saturated by sports coverage. During the closing weeks of the English Premiership, Kevin Keegan lost his rag on Sky Sports and Eric Cantona won just about everything.
It was a year too in which The Den turned 10 and The Morbegs were launched by RTE. Newscaster Charles Mitchel and sports commentator Michael O'Hehir passed on in 1996. Both had been defining voices of Ireland. The most notable birth of the year was that of Teilifis na Gaeilge, a Hallowe'en baby, which, in spite of a lively and fresh approach, is battling for survival. A couple of months on, adequate notification of how to tune in to TnaG has still not been made available.
That, in brief, was television in 1996. The Christmas schedules were bloated by films, soap opera specials and "classic" repeats. There was also Daniel O'Donnell - mega messianic Daniel - with children clustering around His Goodness. It's easy to see why so many younger viewers are placing their hopes in "Drink, Feck, Girls".