There will be blood Zombies take on vampires in the battle for television ratings

TV REVIEW:THE PEOPLE WHO work in RTÉ's archive must be worn to a shred sifting through reels and reels of film to satisfy our apparently insatiable appetite for old footage. This week brought yet another documentary with near wall-to-wall grainy old footage. In Bad Fellasthe journalist Paul Williams explores the growth of crime gangs in Ireland. It's not a million miles from the series he did for TV3, though this budget looked significantly bigger and the contributors, who included former high-ranking gardaí and ex-ministers, more heavyweight. Though for all that I'm not sure anything new was revealed.

In the first of a three-part series Williams tracked the growth of paramilitary violence in the 1970s and how it led to an exponential growth in gun crime and influenced the future growth of crime gangs. The facts were interesting and the statistics compelling, but any viewer would have come to grips with them in way less time than the hour this programme filled.

The problem wasn’t so much the over-reliance on archive footage; it was the formulaic, old-fashioned structure of the programme that made it so dull. It was like a training video for Garda recruits in Templemore. The formula pretty much went like this: clip of archive footage followed by a talking-head interview (mostly filmed, for some presumably arty reason, in a series of grimy disused buildings) and then repeat until the hour is up. A great deal of screen time was spent on the murder of Garda Richard Fallon in 1970, and there was a puzzling detour to the US for an interview about gun crime there. Williams’ script and voiceover were betimes a little overwrought. And Bad Fellas as a title? It’s the name of a Mafia computer game and possibly a nod to Scorsese’s Goodfellas and is as irritating and stupid as those glory nicknames given to criminals.

ECONOMIC BAROMETERS turn up in the most unexpected places. In the first series of The Model Scouts,RTÉ's search for a model, so many of the young wannabes who queued up in shopping malls to be seen were weirdly identical. Ugg boots, Juicy Couture trackies, giant designer bags, inch-thick orange make-up and dyed blond hair ghd'd to within an inch of its overheated split ends – basically hundreds of euro worth of kit hanging on sulky Celtic cub frames. This time around there was so much more individualism on display and the cool-looking teenagers (hundreds turned up at each venue all around the country) were bright and sparky. The chosen 12, mostly with – gasp – brown hair, were maybe for the first time seeing the benefit of growing beyond the minimum height of 5ft 7in.

With episodes filmed in Paris, Sydney and New York, and an international modelling contract for the winner, this model search is as good as America’s Next Top Model in terms of the prize and production quality. The American scouts Jeni Rose and David Cunningham, from the international model agency IMG, were surprisingly kind and overwhelmed by the unspoilt loveliness they spied, though they found one common fault: Irish girls pluck their eyebrows into thin, scary lines, and that’s not in any more. “She’ll be fine when her brows grow out,” was a common sign-off, and they weren’t talking Chris de Burgh-type unibrow, just something a bit more natural.

So that's another clutch of hopes and dreams to follow. There are so many TV competitions you'd be exhausted, what with rooting for our Mary in The X Factor(though I suspect the cute boyband have it in the bag) and agreeing with the ditching by Suralan (or Lord Sugar, as the contestants now call him) of the beautiful but deeply scary Paloma in The Apprenticeon BBC1 on Wednesday. And if you'd a mind to, or could find more hours in the day, you could be "on the journey" with the crowd from TV3's Apprenticeand BBC1's Strictly Come Dancing.

BY ANY STANDARDS RTÉ's About the House and Ear to the Groundare veterans, and both came back this week for their 18th series. About the House has reinvented itself and changed over the years to become more about new technologies and ecofriendly makeovers than just nice carpets and curtains.

The first programme, though, was a puzzle, and a boring one at that, with Duncan Stewart giving a potted history of domestic dwellings and a visit to a trade show – surely all anyone wants to see is the inside of other people’s houses and their trials and tribulations in doing them up. Ear to the Ground, though, came with a stormer of a programme, with strong, upbeat human-interest stories presented by its easygoing and engaging team, Ella McSweeney, Darragh McCullough and Helen Carroll.

McSweeney raises pigs in her suburban back garden (now that’s what I call one-upmanship on all us urban chicken owners), and after five months of pampering it was time to turn them into chops. Being a thrifty type, however, she was determined to use every bit of the pig. At the end of a mammoth butchering and revolting cooking session in her kitchen – actually, a lot of it took place on a burner in the yard; it must have stunk – McSweeney held a dinner for her team, serving up the poor little porkers’ innards, including fried brains (“Mmm, creamy,” she murmured between teeny, tiny unconvincing mouthfuls) and testicles. The guests nibbled without much enthusiasm, understandably enough.

YOU WOULDN’T FIND Kirstie Allsopp following McSweeney’s example and getting elbow deep in pig’s blood to make black pudding. Allsopp’s brand of thriftiness is far prettier. Posh and bossy in a head-girlish sort of way – think Nigella but in a mad furry hat and an impressive range of coats – her new series, Kirstie’s Homemade Home, is all about crocheting your way of the recession, making do and mending and finding a fantastic gem in a market for half nothing and upcycling it into something lovely. Things tend to be “lovely” in Kirstie’s world, which is why it’s so appealing even to Sean, the owner of the house she was making over. “He’s as tight as a gnat’s arse,” she said when she feared he wouldn’t spring for a reclaimed fireplace – but she’s so plummy it somehow didn’t sound rude. It’s a world where Allsopp has a local blacksmith (instead of a Spar) and can run up a pair of curtains in a flash “and it saves literally hundreds of pounds”.

On a rainy November night it’s an appealing, cosy fantasy; the programme’s website, which features such homely pursuits as knitting your own tea cosy, has received more than a million hits. Sneer if you will, but it’s a more attractive option than nibbling on a poached testicle.

The gap between when programmes air in the US and in Europe is closing all the time. The big TV hit this week in the US was The Walking Dead, which hoovered up 5.3 million viewers, making it the highest cable debut of the year. The zombie series, which was made by AMC, the cable channel behind Mad Men, began here on FX last night; the gorefest stars the British actor Andrew Lincoln (with a flawless Southern accent) as Sheriff Rick Grimes, who wakes up from a coma to an empty, shattered hospital where corpses fill the car park and zombies roam the streets.

His wife and son are missing, and, as in a classic Western, he goes in search of them, shooting zombies as he goes. In a brilliant scene he even rides into a devastated Atlanta on a horse because there's no petrol in this post-apocalyptic world. The writer and director Frank Darabont ( The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile) is the guiding hand, and it's beautifully filmed and horribly realistic – the special effects are quality.

The Walking Deadcould just drag the genre out of its geek niche and into the mainstream, and finally see off the weird popularity of small-screen vampires.

Bad Fellas RTÉ1, Monday

The Model Scouts RTÉ2, Tuesday

About the House RTÉ1, Tuesday

Ear to the Ground RTÉ1, Monday

Kirstie’s Homemade Home Channel 4, Tuesday

The Walking Dead FX, Friday