{"id":1098523,"date":"2026-07-19T10:06:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T10:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1098523\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T10:06:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T10:06:17","slug":"tv-guide-the-best-new-shows-to-watch-starting-tonight-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1098523\/","title":{"rendered":"TV guide: the best new shows to watch, starting tonight \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

HighlightsThe Crow Girl Monday, Channel 5, 9pm<\/p>\n

It\u2019s generally a good sign when a series leaps streaming on to terrestrial TV. This six-part crime thriller was originally available via Paramount+, but is making the jump to Channel 5. You can catch three episodes this week, starting Monday. Crow Girl is based on a series of books by Erik Axl Sund and stars British actors Eve Myles (Gone) and Katherine Kelly (Protection). Myles plays DCI Jeanette Kilburn, who is leading a team investigating the death of a young man found on a Bristol street. Kelly, meanwhile, is psychotherapist Dr Sophia Craven, who comes on board to help out. But as more bodies of young men are discovered \u2013 surprisingly, this isn\u2019t one of those shows focused on dead young women \u2013 the case gets more complicated. Among the executive producers is Slash of Guns N\u2019 Roses fame. Yes, seriously.<\/p>\n

Building Ireland Tuesday, RT\u00c9 One, 7pm \"GeographerGeographer Susan Hegarty with the O’Connell brothers of the ESB Fisheries Team, Athlone, Co Westmeath <\/p>\n

A brand-new six-part series begins this week on RT\u00c9 that\u2019s focused on the built heritage and environment defining the river Shannon region. So we\u2019ll travel from Leitrim to Limerick alongside its expert presenters: geographer Dr Susan Hegarty, engineer Tim Joyce and architect Orla Murphy. In this first episode, Murphy explores Athlone\u2019s evolution and how its Shannon crossing played a strategic role in its development. She\u2019ll also take in medieval streetscapes and urban topography and look at the town\u2019s potential for urban regeneration. There\u2019s even more to be explored as Joyce investigates the engineering challenges of defending Athlone from recurring floods and Hegarty meets the ESB fisheries team trying to defend the endangered European silver eel. This looks set to be an in-depth look at the river Shannon \u2013 and certainly an opportunity to discover more about parts and people in Ireland that don\u2019t always get celebrated.<\/p>\n

Katie Price: Nothing to HideWednesday, Sky Documentaries, 9pm\"KatieKatie Price: Nothing to Hide. Photograph: Sky UK Limited <\/p>\n

If you missed the first part of this documentary about British glamour model and tabloid favourite Katie Price, fear not \u2013 you can catch up on the first episode on NOW. But regardless of whether you\u2019ve seen it or not, this compelling documentary is a must-watch for how it dives into the story of Price\u2019s rise as a 1990s glamour model, her controversial courting of the media and her high-profile relationships with the likes of Peter Andre and the impact this has had on her and her (extremely loving and patient) family. In this episode, Price tells us about becoming her alter-ego Jordan, who spent her nights on the town being snapped by paparazzi, while Katie was trying to find control over her image in an industry that wanted to control her. The four-part series, from Louis Theroux\u2019s Bafta-winning Mindhouse, finally gives a new perspective on Price beyond the salacious headlines.<\/p>\n

TestimonyWednesday, RT\u00c9 One, 9.35pm<\/p>\n

This multi-award-winning documentary \u2013 directed by Aoife Kelleher and written by Kelleher and Rachel Lysaght \u2013 is an essential look at the courageous fight for justice by survivors of Ireland\u2019s Magdalene laundries, Mother and Baby Home institutions and forced family separation. By putting the survivors\u2019 words, activism and experiences front and centre, it shows the huge lengths they had to go to achieve justice in a country not very eager to atone for its sins against them. Kelleher, who also directed the documentary Mrs Robinson about former president Mary Robinson, has become an astute chronicler of Irish women\u2019s lives. Participants in this emotional but essential watch include Philomena Lee, whose story was told in the film Philomena, and human rights lawyer Maeve O\u2019Rourke.<\/p>\n

The Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke Thursday, BBC Two, 9pm\"RubyRuby Franke and Kevin Franke. Photograph: BBC\/Disney\/Passion Pictures <\/p>\n

Ruby Franke set up a YouTube channel called 8 Passengers in 2015, wanting to document her life in Utah alongside husband Kevin and their six children. Given the fact that we\u2019re all nosy about how others live, the channel hoovered up viewers \u2013 up to 2.5 million of them at its peak. But while the family appeared wholesome, fans started to raise concerns about how Franke disciplined her children. After separating from her husband in 2022 amid the YouTube channel losing thousands of views, Franke connected with counsellor Jodi Hildebrandt. By 2023, Franke and Hildebrandt were being arrested and charged with child abuse. This promises to tell the inside story of what happened, and includes interviews with some of Frankes\u2019 children and their father Kevin. <\/p>\n

Boris Johnson: Into Ukraine\u2019s Kill Zone Friday, Channel 5, 9pm\"BorisBoris Johnson: Into Ukraine’s Kill Zone, Channel 5 <\/p>\n

Heading to Ukraine\u2019s frontline on a \u201cdeeply unofficial and secret assignment\u201d wasn\u2019t exactly what anyone had on former British prime minister Boris Johnson\u2019s 2026 bingo card, but that\u2019s what he\u2019s doing for this feature-length documentary. The big question is what Johnson can bring us from the frontline, as he eschews the typical relaxing travel documentary route of former politicians to become embedded with Ukrainian soldiers. One would hope he will be able to draw on his journalistic background to tell the real story of what soldiers are facing during the invasion as he meets them in the \u201ckill zone\u201d near Zaporizhzhia, as well as exploring the impact on civilians living with huge levels of fear and uncertainty. If he can shed new light on people\u2019s experiences, then it\u2019ll be a trip worth taking \u2013 as long as it\u2019s not a case of being The Boris Show. <\/p>\n

StreamingPompeii: Out of Time From Thursday, July 23rd, Disney+<\/p>\n

Tom Hiddleston is used to jumping around in time as the Marvel anti-hero Loki, and in this new series, which is part historical documentary and part scripted drama, Hiddleston goes back to the era of ancient Rome, and to the popular seaside town of Pompeii. You could say he\u2019s picked a bad time to arrive, just hours before the town is engulfed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. He\u2019s joined by a team of archaeologists, geologists, historians and people with expertise in natural disasters to tell the story of Pompeii and the real people caught up in the cataclysm. KEVIN COURTNEY<\/b> <\/p>\n

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds From Thursday, July 23rd, Paramount+<\/p>\n

Trekkies everywhere are waiting with anticipation for Paramount to beam them back on to the USS Enterprise for a new series of outer-space adventures with an old-school sensibility. Strange New Worlds makes more than a nod to the original 1960s series, and this fourth series promises to \u201cboldly go one step closer to where it all began\u201d, whatever that means. Anson Mount is back as Capt Christopher Pike, with Ethan Peck as Spock and Rebecca Romijn as Number One. Paramount isn\u2019t giving away many plot details, but we\u2019re assured there\u2019ll be no shortage of new planets, new threats, weird characters and scary aliens. KC<\/b> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HighlightsThe Crow Girl Monday, Channel 5, 9pm It\u2019s generally a good sign when a series leaps streaming on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1098524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3937],"tags":[192,5109,11458,77,694,46675,31952,3986,382,16,15],"class_list":["post-1098523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-bbc","tag-boris-johnson","tag-disney-plus","tag-entertainment","tag-katie-price","tag-paramount-plus","tag-rte","tag-tom-hiddleston","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116946089898815947","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1098523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1098524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1098523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1098523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1098523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}