TVScope The Hospice RTÉ One, Monday, February 5th, 9.30pmFollowing on from the success of last year's The Asylum, writer and director (and also the programme's narrator) Alan Gilsenan has once again produced a series of merit, tapping his documentary skills into the phenomenon that is St Francis Hospice in Raheny, where specialist palliative care is provided to patients with advanced cancer and motor neurone disease, living in north Dublin city and county.
And, from the start, this new four-part series, is a moving, informative introspection that gives a voice to many - young and old - in the twilight of their dwindling existence, living out life fully to the last breath.
The opening scene catches some of the mood, with terminally ill John Maloney straining to catch the light in semi-darkness as he rolls the ends of one of those ribbonous reel-to-reel cassettes that were popular in the 1970s. Reading the cassette's inscription of an Easter 30 years ago, Maloney's face sorrowfully portrays the emotion of loss and the unsustainability of reminiscence, as he slowly retires down the vacuum of his hall towards a light coming from his kitchen.
If you were looking for a metaphor it's possibly Jack Butler Yeats moving towards Cottie in For the Road, or Ethan Edwards fulfilling his destiny in the final sequence of The Searchers.
Aside from the obvious that this is a film-maker's film, Maloney tells it as it is. "My philosophy of life is that I've had a good innings and there's a time to live and a time to die."
Sadly, he reflects, with the tears in his eyes, that now is the time to die.
Beverley Smith is in her 30s and married with two youngish children. Her family tell us she's a fighter and that her stubbornness is keeping her alive.
However, despite the will to live she admits, "I am afraid to die, and I'm very, very angry at the thought of being taken away from my beautiful children."
In the meantime, she keeps a wish list of things she wants to do before the inevitable. So far she's watched her son go to school for the first time, celebrated her daughter's 10th birthday, visited New York three times - all milestones she didn't think she'd make - and now she has her sights firmly on Blackpool.
While hope is a stranger in these parts, it's not all doom and gloom. The Hospice also offers a glimpse of the support system that gives guidance and a caring ear to the families living the nightmare, dealing with their own daily traumas and providing the brave face and everyday solace to a terminally ill father or wife - the comforters comforting the comforters.
The programme includes contributions from the hospice's chief executive Ethel McKenna, medical director Dr Regina McQuillan who maintains "the purpose of medicine is to cure sometimes, to relieve often and to comfort always", and other patients, family and friends.
Overall, The Hospice is as pertinent to life as Big Brother is not, swapping the illusion of the diary room for real life postcards from living people caught in a vacuum, who still have a longevity in their story and enough breath to tell it, however sad.