Come fly with Maggie, Kate, Laura . . . and Mary McAleese

TV REVIEW:IF WE have to suffer yet another TV debate – and it appears we do, because everyone has to get a telly slice of the presidential pie, even TG4, which was daft, because, as we saw on Tuesday night, only one of the candidates is fluent in Irish – then let's hope Pat Kenny preps for next Monday's Frontlinedebate by looking at the very watchable The Constant President(RTÉ1, Monday).

If he does, we could be spared a lot of the guff we’ve heard in previous debates. When any of the seven candidates starts talking about “leading trade delegations”, “opening up the Áras for the people” or “bringing the North closer to the south” as if they are genius new ideas, Kenny can swiftly tell them to stop right there, as it has already been done by Mary McAleese – and with a warm smile on her face.

In this rather formal documentary following the President’s final year in office, we saw her leading a trade delegation to Spain (and chatting away in Spanish), watched while ordinary folk enjoyed splendid hospitality at the Áras (six garden parties alone were held there this summer) and heard from the hard-core Belfast loyalists Jackie McDonald and Paul Hoey, who were almost misty eyed when they talked about how she and her husband, Martin, have reached out to them and made the south seem like a normal sort of place. It all looked quite exhausting, and that’s without mentioning the epic amount of handshaking that goes on.

And the President talked of her daily office work: the business of tracking legislation as it goes through the Dáil and keeping her legal eye out for any constitutional issues. Assorted people gave their views on her presidency, including the three taoisigh she has worked with: Bertie Ahern (does he ever say no to a turn on telly?), Brian Cowen (remember him?) and Enda Kenny.

Some contributors seemed there just because they’re good value. Mary O’Rourke praised the President’s energy but seemed put off by the repetitive drudgery of much of the job – and anyway, 14 years is a “huge wallop out of anyone’s life”. For all the engagement with people, there was the definite impression that the office of the President, with its magnificent house, staff and protocols, is a world within a world.

What also became clear as the documentary went on was that we have had a two-for-one deal: the President’s husband was on almost every podium, prominent in nearly every shot, holding her hand (literally) as she went about her business. It’s as if he has been copresident for the past 14 years. Indeed, talking of her feelings about leaving the job, she constantly used the plural: “We tried our best”, “I won’t be saying I’m sorry we can’t stay” and so on. In the final debate, on Monday, it would be interesting to query the candidates who have a partner on what role, if any, their spouse will play over the next seven years.

IT'S BEEN CALLED mile-high Mad Menbecause, like the cult adman series, Pan Am(RTÉ2, Monday) is set in the early 1960s and comes packed with cultural references that now seem either quaint or outrageous. This glossy new US drama is styled with meticulous retro detailing, and everyone looks fantastic in their 1960s kit. It's nearly impossible to imagine now, when flying means queuing like cattle in comfy elasticated trackie pants (or is that just me?), but it was once the last word in glamour. People dressed up to go the airport, "air stewardess" and "pilot" were shorthand for amazing cosmopolitan careers, and, for the elite who could afford to fly, they weren't just travelling: they were going places.

Pam Am, with its transatlantic routes, was the most exotic airline of them all. So it's the perfect backdrop for a retro-hungry TV audience looking for something to fill the Mad Mengap – though in more of a soapy way than a straight-on drama. This week's pilot episode had a lot of work to do, including introducing the four main characters – stewardesses Maggie (Christina Ricci), Colette (Karine Vanasse), Kate (Kelli Garner) and Laura (Margot Robbie) – and setting up their storylines. The most fun was watching the sexual politics of the day. The women were weighed before starting their shifts and checked to make sure they were wearing a girdle. "With a face like that, you'll find a husband in a couple of months!" one of them gushes to the very beautiful Laura, and Colette's affair with a married passenger feeds in to the "coffee, tea or me?" stereotype.

There are some puzzling plot clunkers, though. Kelli is recruited as a spy by the CIA, there being a cold war – hard to see that being credibly shoehorned into the general storyline – and Ricci, who is the most recognisable star in the series, will need less obvious lines to show her smarts than her chirpy reply to a query from her boho boyfriend: “That’s not Marx, that’s Hegel.”

Created by Jack Orman ( ER), it's worth a look for its glossiness, its come-fly-with-me escapism and its swingin' soundtrack – how could the first episode not take off with its snazzy version of Mack the Knife playing in the background?

ONE PROPERTY programme that has survived the property collapse is Room to Improve(RTÉ1, Wednesday), which wrapped up its fifth series this week with another project that featured all the ingredients that have made the programme so successful. The project was the transformation of John and Lee's newly purchased wreck of a home in Blackrock in Co Dublin. "These beautiful houses in a very exclusive area are all just mud huts . . . You've bought yourself a mud hut," the show's star, the architect Dermot Bannon, told his less-than-thrilled new clients as he rummaged in one of their crumbling walls.

And that's a large part of the reason why Room to Improveworks. Bannon often speaks a couple of seconds before he engages his brain, and he's not afraid to let his mistakes go out on air. This week's humdinger was when the builder figured out that the plans for the swanky new extension didn't actually fit the shape of the plot and would end up in the neighbour's garden. It all came right in the end, of course, though with a couple of rows and hissy fits thrown in.

EARLIER THIS MONTH Room to Improvegot a lot attention because it was the most popular programme on RTÉ in a particular week, way ahead of The Late Late Show, prompting the seasonal bout of handwringing about what to do with station's sacred cow. Not much talk, though, of what's going on with its other weekend chatfest, Brendan O'Connor's Saturday Night Show(RTÉ1).

After weeks of successfully avoiding it, I tuned in last Saturday in time to catch O’Connor’s interview with Courtney Love, mostly famous for her marriage to the late rock star Kurt Cobain. Why she was there never became obvious during the long, rambling interview. The show must have a sizeable guest budget to bother wasting it in that way. O’Connor ended the interview with, “You are much more than just a dead guy’s widow.” Charming, eh?

tvreview@irishtimes.com

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