The Cold War (RTE 1, Tuesday)
Beastly Behaviour (RTE 1, Sunday)
Don't Feed The Gondolas (Network 2, Monday)
Later With Clare McKeon (Network 2, Wednesday)
It was really a cold peace, but it will forever be known as the Cold War. Although they engaged in proxy wars and countless, hard-headed, diplomatic battles, neither the USA nor the USSR (remember them?) ever quite added sufficient political Viagra to ensure that their aggressive, ideological foreplay would end in an explosive bang. So, a quarter of a century after his fabled, 26-part series The World at War began on ITV, Jeremy Isaacs's latest TV project cannot be quite as sensational as his account of the fullscale, searingly hot war that was the second World War.
It cannot be as sensational because, ultimately, the Cold War fizzled out with the collapse of communism in eastern Europe almost a decade ago. It had threatened apocalypse but, unlike the second World War, it did not end with the mushroom clouds of nuclear bombs. In fact, it began in earnest with the destruction of Hiroshima, although it had been simmering for decades before that. Comrades - the opening episode of Isaacs's 24-parter - was, naturally enough, a scene-setter. It sought the roots of the Cold War in the first World War and the Russian revolution.
With the collapse of the old, imperial powers and the victory of communism in Russia, the world awoke to a new, ideological landscape. The rest (for once the cliche is apt) is history. Fascism grew and was defeated, principally by the Red Army. At the end of the second World War, there were two superpowers. Anyway, while Isaacs may have a less sensational "war" to document this time around, there is a great deal more film footage available for his latest series. In that fact alone, we can understand why technology and propaganda were always the key weapons of the Cold War.
Narrated by Kenneth Branagh (Laurence Olivier did the job on the £1 million The World at War), Isaacs's new series, costing £7 million is, again, splendid television. At times, it does appear too sure of its analysis - then again, anything narrated by Branagh would, wouldn't it? - but in terms of range of interviewees, archive footage and simple, bloody relevance, it's light years ahead of most of the dumbed-down slop that fills so much of the television schedules these years. It is also history remembered in full or in part by a sizeable proportion of viewers.
The credits for The Cold War list CNN mogul Ted Turner as the person responsible for the "series concept". Mind you, "concept", usually suggests a general notion with a degree of creativity. Told from the winning side, we need to be watchful of such "concepts", although, in fairness, the scene-setting, opening episode appeared reasonably balanced. It might have stressed more the roles of fascism's sneaking regarders in the West - major American capitalists, British royalty and Christian leaders among them. Instead, it concentrated primarily on the appalling Joe Stalin.
Footage of collectivised farms and of show trials in Moscow did make the point that the USSR, far from being a workers' paradise, had become a police state, or, perhaps more accurately, an army state. Sergo Beria, son of the USSR's former head of police, recalled Stalin coming to the Beria home to explain that the Soviet pact with the Nazis was signed "to buy time". Other interviewees, including ageing British diplomats, remarked that Stalin, privately, was "a personable fellow". Charming, no doubt.
"If you treat Uncle Joe as a member of our club, perhaps one day he will behave like a member of our club," was, according to one Tory diplomat, the thinking of Churchill and his cronies. It seemed a peculiar sentiment, given that Stalin's imperialism turned British imperialists apoplectic. Still, it was the type of insider anecdote which Isaacs's series uses tellingly. Likewise, former Red Army photographer, Yevgeny Khaldei, remembered that the famous red flag hoisted over Berlin's Reichstag in 1945 was made from "three tablecloths" improvised for the purpose.
So, between the archive footage, strong interviewees and engaging anecdotes, The Cold War (it begins tonight on BBC 2, for which it was made) ought to be a highlight of the cold season approaching. It will not emulate the impact made by The World at War, not just because of its less catastrophic outcome, but also because 25 years on, TV audiences are much more fragmented. Still, it offers perspective on the contemporary world: paranoia was whipped-up because of competing ideologies as US paranoia had previously been whipped-up because of religion (Salem) and alcohol (prohibition). Now it's all been reduced to sex 'n' sleaze. Welcome to the idea-free, hot and spicy new world order.
Only in recent years has the status of animals in the world order been addressed. Beastly Behaviour, presented by Shay Healy and Fiona McShane is RTE's new series about pets and their owners. It is certainly not revolutionary, opting instead for a conventional magazine format. Still, within such a format, it is appropriately lively if, at times, unnecessarily cutesy. Onlookers may understand a person's relationship with a pet (or, of course, depending on the onlooker, the person and/or the pet, may not) but the intensity of emotion in some of these relationships can only be fully fathomed by the parties involved.
The first topic dealt with the problem of wild cats in Dublin. It appears that up to 20 cats are "put to sleep" daily. Furthermore, tom-cats, being as territorial as Portadown Orangemen, sometimes lay siege to houses which have domesticated toms. One homeowner told of a wild tom jumping through open windows in an effort to sort out the resident neutered softie. Perhaps the wild one had come across a supply of Viagra.
Anyway, the wild cat problem - a genuinely serious issue in Dublin - gave way to more whimsical stuff. We heard about the "characters" of box tortoises, which, given that the tortoises don't seem to do anything at all, requires an extremely discerning evaluation. The character of a railway sleeper would not present any greater difficulty. Certainly, neither of the two tortoises shown on Beastly Behaviour appeared to be especially extroverted or vivacious. In fact, they seemed as frozen as the unfortunates of Pompeii or the less energetic members of Britain's House of Lords.
After that, we moved on to a dog with bad breath and tartar on his teeth. Brutus had his gnashers brushed but (what sort of example is this?) not flossed. We were informed too that dog toothpaste nowadays comes in chicken-flavoured and beef-flavoured varieties. I feel it is important to share this information with any of you who may have missed the programme. Tomorrow night, a pet psychologist will be featured: that is a psychologist for pets, not just a cute, little, regular psychologist that you might like to cuddle and patronise.
In fairness, Beastly Behaviour has some of the qualities of a service series. It does deal with issues which are of interest not just to pet owners, but to the population at large. However, in opting to be excessively cutesy, it risks marginalising itself. The problem of wild cats in Dublin is a serious one but not nearly as serious as the problem of self-centred owners keeping savage dogs. We saw again this week how these creatures can maul and disfigure a child. RTE's pet series could do worse than campaign aggressively to end this lunacy. More relevance and less cutseyness could transform it into a useful albeit modest, slice of public service broadcasting.
Back again for a new season on Network 2 is Don't Feed The Gon- dolas. Sean Moncrieff remains as head gondolier, assisted as before by junior gondoliers Brendan O'Connor and Dara O Briain. This week, O Briain was teamed up with pop musician Deirdre O'Neill and O'Connor with Peter Stringfellow, an ageing paramour who, by reputation and self-promotion, could make a randy tom-cat seem as lively as an arthritic box tortoise.
On satire-starved RTE, there is not only a place but a need for a programme such as this. It has tightened up considerably from the first few outings of its opening series. Then it was about as witty as a civil service memo regarding paperclip storage. Now, at least, it does raise a few laughs even if the mickey-take on Mullingar was, in many respects, as smug and provincial as the smugness and provinciality it was satirising.
Still, unearthing Marian Finucane playing Quicksilver with Bunny Carr was a gem. Commenting on the fact that Ms Finucane was expelled from school, Moncrieff suggested that it was "for not listening". That's clever. Footage of an extremely eccentric priest on Belfast's Shankill Road (kilted-out in green, white and orange, the reverend gentleman's peace process was based upon Irish dancing) was equally amusing. At times, there remains a slightly nasty, undergraduate streak to the humour of DFTG. It is not yet Have I Got News For You, but it has improved significantly.
Another home-produced returnee is Later With Clare McKeon. This week, the femaleonly guff-fest considered the implications and difficulties of teenage pregnancies. Without doubt, this is a worthy topic for a chat-show. But there was something impenetrable in the way in which the assembled women discussed the issue. It is probably because the type of discussion on this show is deliberately a woman-thing. Or it may be that in straining to entertain and not simply inform, this kind of putative openness actually detracts from the gravitas of subjects.
Presenter McKeon, maybe because she seems excessively confident in front of camera, appears to strive too earnestly. Mixing gestures and elaborately pensive poses, she still seems to arrive, as often as not, at nothing more than platitudes, despite delivering them as profundities. The overall effect is that the show seems too conscious that it is a show. Acting natural is still acting. On the other hand, women may be able to decode this type of programme in less dismissive terms. But, to me, it usually displays the shrill and self-regarding girlyness which you see on those shampoo ads that end up with a big-haired narcissist asserting coquettishly "because I'm worth it".
Finally, Questions and Answers. A rather routine edition of the programme, enlivened principally by Eamon Dunphy castigating Mary Robinson as "vain and bullying", ended in some disarray this week. A protesting invalid and companion commandeered the final minute or so to attack Charlie McCreevey. It was clear that their distress was real and heartfelt and they obviously feel justified in playing such live hardball with the minister. Using available technology to spread a message didn't end with the end of the Cold War. In fact, with the proliferation of the Internet, we can expect more such guerilla actions, no matter how tightly television controls its output.