TV guide: the best new shows to watch, starting tonight

Pick of the Week

The Galway Bay MurdersSunday, RTÉ One, 9.30pm

A number of years ago, actor Kate Mulgrew had a chance meeting in Galway with Elaine Verling, director of Galway City Museum. The pair became fast friends, and soon Verling was writing her first TV script with Mulgrew in mind. The resulting series, which begins on RTÉ on Sunday, sees Mulgrew play an NYPD lieutenant called Nora Savage, who heads to Galway on a career break after a traumatic personal event. But a good cop can’t stay away from an intriguing case, and soon she’s involved in the investigation into the killing of a woman whose body is found on a Connemara bog. The dead woman was a climate activist and her boyfriend is now on the run. As one would expect from such a show, the case doesn’t just put Savage under pressure professionally, but personally too, as she has to confront some demons head-on. With the second season of Crá also airing on TG4, it’s great to have Ireland as the backdrop to another noirish crime series. It has a stacked cast – as well as Mulgrew, the series stars Colm Meaney, John Connors, India Mullen, Cillian O’Sullivan, Jack Rowan, Clinton Liberty and Dervla Kirwan.

[ Star Trek’s Kate Mulgrew: ‘I need to return to Ireland regularly to reinforce everything that’s good in myself’Opens in new window ]

Highlights

Mums vs Big PharmaMonday, BBC Two, 9pm

In 2025, an inquiry began in Ireland into the prescription of sodium valproate, a drug used to treat epilepsy, bipolar disorder and migraines but which caused birth defects in children. In the UK, a similar medical scandal was brewing, as this new documentary from the co-producers of Mr Bates vs The Post Office shows. It specifically focuses on two mothers, Janet Williams and Emma Murphy, whose children were born with development abnormalities. The pair fought for answers across three decades, in the face of being dismissed by both doctors and the drug company. With the Irish inquiry due to be completed by spring 2027, this will be a timely watch.

BustedMonday, RTÉ One, 9.35pm

In the second episode of this three-part series, we get the incredible tale of what happened when cocaine with an estimated street value of €1.2 billion washed up in a west Cork bay in 2007. In this episode, we’ll learn how the smugglers were interrupted after they filled a stalled engine with diesel instead of petrol, and about the manhunt to track down the British gang behind the haul. Sixty-one bales of cocaine were recovered from the sea off the Cork coast, with a final bale discovered months later. If the story sounds familiar, that’s because it went on to inspire the film and subsequent TV show The Young Offenders.

Futureville IrelandTuesday, RTÉ One, 7pm

Carla O’Brien and Dr Lollie Mancey are back for a third season of Futureville, where they imagine how the town of Athlone could be transformed into a brand new city by 2050. In the first episode Carla tries to write a hit song using AI tools, but the reaction from young performers in Athlone is mixed, leading her to look deeper into the role of AI in creativity. Meanwhile, Lollie examines how Athlone could fight off the threat of flooding and extreme weather. First she learns about how medieval builders dealt with floodwater, before heading to Amsterdam to find out more about how they do things there. Then they look into the possibility of a future space industry in the midlands. This show is part-funded by Research Ireland and broadcast as part of National Science Week 2026.

Hunting Alice BellWednesday, Channel 4, 9pm

There are some Irish connections to this new Channel 4 psychological thriller co-created by comic David Baddiel and film critic Peter Bradshaw: it was filmed in Co Wicklow, and the score was composed by musician Daithí O’Drónaí. But what’s it all about? Alexandra Roach plays Fran Da Silva, who is attacked by online rumours that her true identity is Alice Bell. That’s a giant problem, because Bell was the lover of convicted serial killer Dr Jason Nash (Simon Pegg), and falsified evidence that allowed him to go on killing. Bell, who is basically Britain’s most hated woman, is living under a new identity after being released from prison. But it transpires that Fran isn’t the only person to be accused of being her, so she bands together with the other “Alices”. Although ... might one of them be the real Alice? An intriguing premise. The cast also includes Amanda Abbington and Ralf Little.

Ireland’s Population CrashWednesday, RTÉ One, 9.35pm

Miriam O’Callaghan is back in the last episode of this miniseries, which looks at collapsing birth rates and shifting demographics in Ireland. The average life expectancy in this country has risen over the years to 83, and there are expected to be 1.3 million people over the age of 65 by 2040. But what does that mean for Ireland’s future? To find out, O’Callaghan heads to the Royal Hospital in Dublin, where people share their secrets to longevity, and she also meets Dr Lisa Cogan to find out whether our healthy years are increasing alongside our age (spoiler: not really). She goes on to meet staff caring for elderly patients, before heading to South Korea to find out why AI robots are increasingly being relied on to care for the elderly.

Neurodivergence: The Making of MeThursday, RTÉ One 10.15pm

According to the Central Statistics Office, about 18.7 per cent of people aged 18 years and over have been diagnosed with a neurodivergent condition, or suspected they were neurodivergent at the time of the last Irish census. But online and media discussions about neurodivergence can focus on the debate about diagnosis rates, rather than on the experiences of neurodivergent people themselves. In this new documentary, autistic people and people with ADHD are at the centre of the story. The makers of the show say they want to “challenge and change how we think and talk about autism and ADHD”, and to focus on lived experience as well as the most recent research in the area.

The Good DaughterThursday, Sky Atlantic, 9pm

On the lookout for a new thriller? Try The Good Daughter, which is based on American crime writer Karin Slaughter’s bestselling 2017 novel of the same name, with a script also written by her. It’s about the Quinn sisters, Charlotte (Meghann Fahy, who you’ll have seen in The White Lotus) and Samantha (Australian actor Rose Byrne), whose lives were impacted by a night of devastating violence. Twenty years later, another attack occurs in their small town of Pikeville. By then, Charlotte is a lawyer and is also the incident’s first witness. The estranged sisters are reunited when Samantha – still bearing the physical scars of the original incident – returns from New York after the attack. The sisters’ trauma and relationship is put in the spotlight and there are plenty of twists and turns in store for us viewers. Brendan Gleeson stars as their father Rusty Quinn.

Streaming

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of PowerFrom Wednesday, November 11th, Prime Video

Prime Video’s tent-pole production, based on the epic writings of JRR Tolkien, has proven to be a bloated, unwieldy exercise buckling under its own weight. But try telling that to hard-core Lord of The Rings fans, who’ll be eagerly tuning into this third series of the most expensive TV show of all time. Just to get your bearings: we’re in the Second Age of Middle-earth, five years after the fall of Eregion, and Middle-earth’s free peoples are desperately trying to defend themselves from the Dark Lord’s marauding armies. Sauron’s mission to rule them all is going according to plan, but he needs one special weapon that will guarantee him total dominance. While he’s working away in his tower in Mordor, forging the One Ring, the dwarves are digging themselves deeper into their fortress beneath the Misty Mountains and the elves are putting strong magic around their realms of Rivendell and Lindon. Sauron wants to “restore order to this broken world”. Can the producers restore some coherence to this convoluted series? KEVIN COURTNEY

The BodyFrom Wednesday, November 11th, Netflix

You’ve gagged over the recent reboot of Stephen King’s Carrie; are you ready for another camp high-school horror series, this one with a dollop of Catholic guilt and early-noughties raunch? The Lions are an ambitious dance troupe who will go to any lengths to win big competitions, even summoning up the Devil to help them. To that end they take a new recruit, Grace (Sofia Wylie), and perform a macabre, drug-fuelled ritual. It’s not long before all hell breaks loose and the Lions are desperately trying to cover their tracks while dealing with some terrifying goings-on at their buttoned-up Catholic high school. KC

12 12 12From Friday, November 13th, Apple TV

What does it take to pull off Europe’s biggest bank robbery? This high-octane crime thriller starring Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan has done the maths. According to Mackie’s FBI agent, Jack Strickland, a high-value heist should take 12 months to plan, then 12 hours to carry out. If the thief hasn’t been caught within 12 days of the robbery, then the chance of catching him goes down to zero. So after an elaborate, carefully planned break-in at a big bank in Zurich, Strickland finds himself pursuing Donan’s criminal mastermind, Paul Galvin, across Europe. The story, which is peppered with shootings, explosions, car chases and people jumping out of high-rise buildings, is told through the three different timelines, so you might want to keep a clock and calendar to hand. KC