One of the biggest problems with big TV shows these days is that they take so long to make: you wait for two years between seasons, and by the time the new one starts you can’t remember what was happening anyway.
But even two years is nothing compared to the nearly-ten-years BBC have left between seasons one and two of The Night Manager, a show which is not even that big or complex, and which has just returned as their first big drama of 2026.
If you can recall that far back, you’ll remember that the first season saw Tom Hiddleston as Jonathan Pine, going up against Hugh Laurie’s nefarious arms dealer Richard Roper. That story was rounded off clearly enough – as the first few minutes here tell us – but this new season is still linked.
As we rejoin him, Jonathan Pine is now living as Alex Goodwin, an MI6 officer running a dull surveillance unit close to home in London. But one night he randomly spots an old associate of Roper’s, which immediately raises his suspicions; soon he’s chasing a new conspiracy aimed at national destabilisation, and which involves a new Big Bad in the shape of Colombian businessman Dos Santos (Diego Calva).
This season has been compared to Slow Horses, and that makes some sense in its less glamorous settings. But it doesn’t have the sticky-surface feeling, or the depth of character of Slow Horses, so it’s going to need a stronger plot – and so far that’s a little murky, with a tragedy thrown in rather too early to try to replicate season one.
But it’s early days, and there’s certainly a bit of intrigue and danger there, while Hiddleston – as cheesy as he can be at times – is understated and suave as the increasingly alarmed agent.
He’s also rejoined by Olivia Colman as his Foreign office handler, so we can expect some good snappy debates among the action.
Callan Kicks The Year 2025 – RTÉ1, Wednesday, 9.30pm
Also returning, though more promptly, was Oliver Callan with his annual Callan Kicks The Year on New Year’s Eve: in which he reviews the events of the year gone by through a series of sketches and impressions. And after the year we’ve had, we deserve a bit of laughter – and we all know there’s been plenty of source material, from Presidents to politics to (former) princes and popular TV programmes.
Callan and his team have a go at a lot of them, of course. If they could make something funny from them, not the usual noisy OTT RTE campery it would be great. But no. Callan’s usually reliable impressions were not even their old selves – even someone as familiar as Graham Norton was indistinct apart from his trademark chortle.
And, perhaps most frustrating, there were good ideas here: a Traitors-like TV show called The Landlords, and the tendency for popular Irish acts to ham up their regionality were both rich with satirical potential, and both ended up flat and laughter-free.
Room To Improve – RTÉ1, Sunday, 9.30pm
There are, at this time of year, some things reliably pushed by all varieties of media, and they usually aim either for reinvention (“new year, new you”) or simple midwinter comfort.
TV often tries to straddle the border between those two things, by wheeling out the same old formats about renewal. Last weekend, for example, saw the reappearance of two familiar property shows, BBC’s Amanda & Alan’s Greek Job, and, inevitably, RTÉ ’s Room To Improve.
You know what to expect with both shows, which I suppose is part of the point but can make them cumulatively deadening.
Room To Improve’s return gave us Dermot Bannon and Claire Irwin trying to help the Kellys in Dublin to downsize from their current spacious home, back into the first home they had always loved.
It was, for Bannon and viewers both, a slightly puzzling project: a downsizing project that involved an extension, in some ways trying to make the new home match the one they wanted to downsize out of…a house which, in Bannon’s words, was “just up the road” anyway.
In any case, it wasted no time in recapping everything we’ve ever seen in a Room To Improve: literally within 10 minutes we had a busted budget, some squabbling between Bannon and the owners about what was happening, and a big glass addition to the new house, which was of course the old house.
I’m quite bored with this show, to be honest. It’s not that it’s actually a bad show, but I do wonder how long RTé expects us to keep watching what is essentially the same formulaic episode over and over.
Amanda & Alan’s Greek Job – BBC1, Friday, 9.30pm
Amanda & Alan’s Greek Job, meanwhile, is less technical, and at times equally annoying, but it does have bluer skies and some unpredictable moments (thanks largely to Alan Carr).
This time they’re fixing up an ivy-strangled property on Corfu, gagging in every way while getting involved in some of the work themselves. Mind you, you’re never sure how much of the work they really do, especially as they spend as much time getting to know the locals and the local restaurants, as if they’re planning to stay (in fact the property proceeds are going to charity).
Really it’s just another lifestyle/travel show with some property renovation involved, although whether or not the pleasure of the scenery is worth having to hear Holden’s constant cackle is up for debate.
Bowie: The Final Act – Channel 4, Saturday, 9pm
If, starting into a new year, you’re feeling all right, it’s a bit sobering to think that it’s ten years since David Bowie died – a shock in its own right, but has anything anywhere been right with the world since?
Channel 4 has marked it with Bowie: The Final Act, a film which follows the last stretch of his life and work, beginning with a summary of his rise to fame, then kicking off its main thrust with his legacy-reclaiming Glastonbury comeback in 2000 and ending with the 2016 release of the jazzy, genius goodbye Blackstar.
It’s a good story, with its own twists and turns: two early 2000s albums followed by fabulous live shows which ended with several health scares (there’s some rare footage of an interrupted gig here).
After that Bowie disappeared for ten years – then came back in 2013 with new, completely unsuspected music, and fooled us all again.
This film covers all that in respectful and sometimes moving detail: critics who were too harsh at the time, colleagues who recalled working with him, and most importantly Bowie’s friend and collaborator Tony Visconti, who has vast insight and is still visibly moved by Bowie’s early but perfect exit.
There are problems. It’s too quick to dismiss Bowie’s 1990s as weak, when in fact it was a fascinating decade of experimentation and some excellent music (and come on now, the magisterial 1.Outside came out in 1995). And, this being Channel 4, it’s more padded than it should be, and perhaps lingers too long on Glastonbury 2000.
But with a subject this magnetic, and up-close witness testimony, it’s a good start to the year for music (not just Bowie) fans.
And you know what, Blackstar, and particularly the extraordinary Lazarus video, both still hurt a little.
