RTE kicks off 1997 with a range of new variety and documentary series. The Blackbird And The Bell is a "fireside gathering for discussion, debate, poetry and music", and there will be more discussion on the arts programme The Black Box, which returns in a somewhat different format, with Anne Marie Hourihane as host and Sean Moncrieff providing location reports. Sweet Dreams is a four part series about the hopes and aspirations of Irish entertainers, while The Professionals looks at the day to day lives of mid ranking sportspeople in the build up to major events.
One of the best Irish produced programmes of 1996 was Donald Taylor Black's documentary, Hearts And Souls, about the No Divorce Campaign. Taylor Black's new four part documentary series, The Joy, uses the same fly on the wall style to chronicle life inside Mountjoy Prison.
With new series of Casualty, Silent Witness and Common As Muck beginning in January, the BBC's first flagship drama for 1997 is Inhoe, starting on Sunday, January 12th. Walter Scott's medieval epic is brought to the screen in a six part version, with a high proportion of Irish names among the cast, including Ciaran Hinds and Victoria Smurfit. In February, BBC 2's four part version of Joseph Conrad's Nostromo features a high profile cast including Colin Firth, Albert Finney and Claudia Cardinale.
Channel 4 has been edging towards a 24 hour service over the last few years, and the circle is finally closed in January, with new thematic strands each night of the week. In drama, Claire Bloom stars in Family Money, a series that combines elements of family drama and mystery. Up and coming Northern Irish comedian Patrick Kielty hosts Last Chance Lottery, a new variety show "for life's losers", while a different perspective on comedy is provided by Howard Jacobson, whose documentary series Seriously Funny aims to dig for the roots of humour, from the laughter rites of the Navajo Indians to the non PC rantings of Bernard Manning.
Also on Channel 4, Dark Skies, the latest paranormal import from the US, pulls together everything from the Roswell incident to Vietnam, and Beatlemania in its tale of a young Washington couple involved in a secret government programme to ward off an extraterrestrial invasion.
There's more weird goings on over on Sky One with Millennium, the latest offering from X Files creator Chris Carter, but Murder One fans will have mixed feelings about the return of their favourite show to the satellite channel on New Year's Day. Daniel Benzali, the shaven headed central character of the first series, has been dumped in favour of Anthony LaPaglia, and this time we follow three cases instead of one - the very first day of the year, and already things ain't what they used to be ...
