*Spoiler alert*

“Star Trek: Picard” is the show I’ve been waiting ages for, as I’m always a fan of the What Happened Next genre in fiction I like. I want to know what happened to the characters I like, to the Federation, to the future. I enjoy “Star Trek: Discovery” and roll my eyes at the usual anti-SJW stuff but I have to admit, I don’t really gel with the characters in it. They all look like they’re about to burst into tears all the time, with the exception of Lorca, Pike and (my favourite) Georgiou who basically regards everybody else as a bunch of crybabies. Picard is about my guy, the emotionally retarded stiff upper lip captain of the Enterprise.

What worries me about Picard however isn’t the characters. I get that we live in an age where absolutely f**king everything has to be emotionally over the top. My problem is with a trait displayed by many US TV writers with regarding emotional gymnastics as being all that matters, and non-emotional plot becoming a McGuffin. For the benefit of unfamiliar readers, a McGuffin is a Hitchcock term for an objective/object that matters to the characters but not really to the audience. It’s The Thing they are trying to rescue, recover, destroy, but what it is doesn’t really need to be understood by the audience to follow the story.

And that’s my problem. Entertaining as it is, it feels like the backstory of Picard is just a McGuffin. Take the reason for Picard’s resignation from Starfleet and the Federation’s abandoning of the Romulans. It’s a fundamental change to the values of the Federation that we have been brought up to known (and love) throughout the Star Trek franchise. When talking with an admiral about it Picard she informs him that Federation members are threatening to leave if they are forced to help the Romulans after the attack on Mars. This is all quite believable, and not a million miles from the EU and it’s challenges with refugees. But it’s just used as an excuse for Picard to mope around feeling let down. I hope there’s more to it than that, not just another “bloody politicians” get out.

It’s the same with the Romulans. We are led to believe that the Romulan Empire was destroyed by the supernova, yet there is talk of a Romulan Free State and the Tal Shiar still exist. Again, no detail, just a convenient McGuffin baddy.

I get it. Few people want to watch a show about the intricate political debates of the Federation (Although I’d definitely watch Star Trek: Place de la Concorde) but still. Now, maybe I’m doing the show a disservice. Maybe there will be a big reveal at the end. I sure hope so, as opposed to the infamous “Lost” finale and the “They’re all in purgatory or something” ending.

If you like spy shows, politically incorrect humour and sexual vulgarity, Fox’s cartoon show “Archer” is for you.

It’s based around brilliant but incredibly self-centred and over-sexed agent Sterling Archer, operative of ISIS (Yeah, they’ve since changed that. Ahem.), and his battles against the KGB, terrorists, his domineering nymphomaniac mother/boss (played by the brilliant Jessica Walter of “Arrested Development” fame), his fellow agent/ex-lover Lana Kane, his dysfunctional/sociopathic/perverted co-workers and people who stole his Black Turtleneck Is Cool look.

Try it. But be warned. This is not one for the kiddies or the faint hearted. Think “The Man from UNCLE” but with a lot of dick jokes.

From 1981 to 1991 mention the island of Jersey to anyone watching British television and they’ll almost certainly mention “Bergerac”. The detective show, set on the island, starred John Nettles as recovering alcoholic detective sergeant Jim Bergerac of the Bureau des Etrangers of the Jersey police, a special unit that dealt with tourists but more often with the many very wealthy foreigners who lived on the island.

By today’s standards, the Jersey of the 1980s all looks a bit naff, but at the time the wealth of the island, its sunny location and the French connection made it all seem very exotic and even glamorous indeed, and for ten years it was a Saturday teatime favourite.

As with many successful shows, Bergerac had a breakout character, Charlie Hungerford, played by veteran character actor Terence Alexander, who was a north of England bovver boy made good, a sort of Arthur Daley who had done very well for himself, thank you very much. One of the running jokes of the show was that Hungerford seemed to know absolutely everybody on the island, or at least was connected, often without his own knowledge, to every criminal enterprise on Jersey.

The show was a huge hit, and was responsible for boosting tourism to Jersey, with Nettles himself heading up the campaign.

Nettles went on to achieve a rare success for an actor in having played a household name for a decade as Jim Bergerac then went on to do it again for over a decade as Chief Inspector Barnaby in “Midsomer Murders”.

“The Irish RM”, which ran for three series from 1983-85, has unfairly been dismissed in recent years as a bit of paddywhackery about the clever English been driven to despair by the stupid ways of the pre-independence Irish of 1897 to 1905, when it is set. I have to admit that until I rewatched the series on DVD recently I held that view myself, based on vague memories of it on TV as a child.

Watching it now, however, reveals that the show was much more subtle and balanced in its portrayal of the two countries and their views of each other. Indeed, if one is being honest, it’s arguable that there is one only episode, its final one, where the English score a clear victory over the Irish. As Yates himself discovers, what looks to an outsider like a bit of Irish stupidity is almost always revealed to be hiding some scheme behind it.

Set in a rural Cork district in 1897, the series tells in comedy drama form the tribulations of Major Sinclair Yates (Peter Bowles), a decent if unimaginative new appointment as the resident magistrate. Yates finds that not only does he have to deal with the Machiavellian smoke and mirrors of the local Catholic rural poor, but also the Protestant Anglo-Irish ascendancy who are often hand in glove with the Catholics against the stiff rule of Dublin Castle.

The show was well received in its first broadcast, not only for its entertainment value but also for the fact that it was one of the few major TV drama productions filmed in Ireland in the mid-1980s, and provided a platform for a Who’s Who of Irish acting talent including Bryan Murray in a career-defining role as the roguish but lovable Flurry Knox, Niall Toibin as his equally roguish henchman Slipper and Anna Manahan as the terrifying Mrs Cadogan. Everybody else from Mick Lally, Noel Purcell, Frank Kelly, Joe Lynch, Alan Stanford, Lise Ann McLaughlin, Pat Laffan, Eamonn Morrissey, Brendan Conroy, Virginia Lawless, David Kelly, Jonathan Ryan and others all got their bit.

In fact, it’s quite possible that no one in Ireland over 40 has not met someone who was in it at some stage. Off the top of my head I can think of three people I’ve met who had roles in it. Retweet this if you’ve met one of them!

The humour is gentle, and there is a little bit too much chasing a goose around a garden type shenanigans for my liking, but it is a charming show with some top class performances. Worth another look.