TV guide: Seven of the best shows to watch this week, beginning tonight

Fire and Blood: The Vikings in Ireland

Sunday, RTÉ One, 6.30pm

We can’t get enough of those Vikings, with their heavy-metal hairdos, big, choppy swords, rampant libidos and anger-management issues. They’ve marauded their way through popular media, and as Vikings Valhalla (filmed in Ireland, don’t you know) gets renewed for a second and third season on Netflix, here’s RTÉ with a two-part docudrama on how these Norse gods and goddesses wrought huge changes on Ireland from the ninth century onwards. The series promises to challenge what we think we know about the Vikings, using new discoveries and scientific breakthroughs to build a portrait of life in Ireland under these invaders. Among the finds are remains of a Viking woman on Rathlin Island, where Vikings made their first attack on Ireland in 795 AD, and evidence of an enormous Viking harbour on Dublin’s Ship Street. We will also be introduced to Ivarr, the Viking king whose powerful dynasty ruled Dublin, Waterford and other parts of the country from around 850 AD. Ivarr was like a medieval gang boss, and he led a fearsome group known as the Dark Foreigners. (No, it wasn’t a heavy-metal band.) But will there be blood and bonking? The docudrama features battle re-enactments and seafaring scenes, but if you want rumpy-pumpy you can log on to Netflix after this blast of historical thrills and spills.

Van Der Valk

Sunday, ITV, 8pm

Our favourite Dutch detective (actually, we don’t know any other) is back for a second season of the 21st-century reboot of the 1970s crime series – you know, the one with that hit theme tune, Eye Level, by the Simon Park Orchestra. This new Van Der Valk is played with deadly seriousness by Marc Warren, who basically has the same steely-eyed look throughout, and the action is darker and grittier. Even the famous theme tune is given a bit of a sinister edge. In the first of three episodes, Van Der Valk is called in to investigate when the mutilated body of a solicitor, Susie De Windt, is found on a wind farm. A note left in the victim’s coat suggests more such murders may be planned, and Van Der Valk must race to decipher the messages before another gruesome murder can be carried out.

Dr Eva’s Great Escape

Monday, RTÉ One, 9.35pm

She was one of Ireland’s best-known health and weight-loss experts, giving advice on Operation Transformation and strutting her stuff on Dancing with the Stars. But where has the Finnish fitness guru been these past few years? In Portugal, where she and her husband, Wyatt, bought a run-down farmhouse-turned-hotel with a plan to restore it and reopen it as a fabulous health-and-fitness resort. RTÉ cameras followed Eva and Wyatt as they embarked on the gargantuan task of restoring the hotel, and learned that it’s not so easy building your dream palace in the sun. To make matters worse, just as they cut the ribbon on Solar Alvura, the pandemic hit and the couple had to struggle to get their hotel off the ground amid lockdowns, travel restrictions and other obstacles. With the cash running out and the creditors seeming to outnumber the customers, Eva and Wyatt are going to have to work had to make Solar Alvura into a mecca for health-and-fitness fanatics.

Good Grief with Rev Richard Coles

Monday, Channel 4, 10pm

When you think of Richard Coles, you think of the unbridled joy of Don’t Leave Me This Way, the fab 1980s hit by his band The Communards. But in 2019 the former pop star and now Church of England vicar came face to face with unimaginable grief when his husband, David, died. In this documentary he talks about the long process of dealing with this gut-punch to the soul. Having helped many of his flock through bereavement and tragedy over the years, Coles thought he’d be able to get through this, but he found himself utterly unequipped to deal with his loss. So he embarks on a personal journey through grief, and learns about the many different ways of tackling it, including laughter yoga, therapy alpacas, and a grief cruise for people who are dealing the loss of a loved one. Coles has recently published his best-selling crime novel, Murder Before Evensong, the first in the Canon Clement mystery series.

Michael Murphy: Devising great tactics won’t matter if the best players aren’t on the pitch

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The timing of a general election - what options does Simon Harris have for going to the people?

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‘People are not reading your stuff’ is the worst thing you can say to journalists

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The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry: A vaudeville masterpiece, gaudy, ragged and irrepressible

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Shetland

Wednesday, BBC One, 9pm

You wouldn’t imagine there’d be much for a cop to do on the Shetland Islands – except maybe investigate a sheep theft or two. But DI Jimmy Perez knows that this remote Scottish archipelago is a hotbed of heinous crime and murder most foul. Douglas Henshall stars as the unconventional cop in the seventh season of the rural crime series, with Alison O’Donnell as his partner, Tosh. Perez is back at work after being suspended, and is immediately thrown into a missing-persons investigation. When a vulnerable young man mysteriously disappears, his parents, who own a local B&B, are frantic with worry. But Perez soon suspects the family is not giving him the full picture.

A League of Their Own

From Friday, Prime Video

Remember the 1992 movie directed by Penny Marshall and starring Geena Davis, Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell as the stars of the All-American Girls’ Baseball League during the second World War? Now, 30 years later, we finally have the TV series, telling the story of the sassy ladies who went to bat for women in sports in an age when baseball was a manly sport played by manly men in a manly way. This series features all-new characters and storylines, but the basic premise is still there: can a professional women’s baseball team win games – and respect – in a changing US landscape? This will be a reminder of how far women have come in the US since the second World War, and how some bad players are now trying to shunt women back into the dark ages. There’s a nod to the original movie with a guest appearance by Rosie O’Donnell, this time playing a bartender.

Five Days at Memorial

From Friday, Apple TV+

It’s August 2005, and Louisiana has just been battered by one of the biggest and most devastating hurricanes in US history, leaving more than 1,800 people dead and causing $125 billion worth of damage. For the staff and patients of a hospital in New Orleans the nightmare is only just beginning, however, in this hard-hitting and special-effects-heavy drama based on real-life events, adapted from the book by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sheri Fink. Vera Farmiga stars as a beleaguered healthcare worker who, along with her colleagues, is frantically trying to keep her patients alive under hellish conditions, with floodwaters rising, heat reaching unbearable levels and power totally knocked out, she is forced to make agonising decisions over the next few days that will haunt her for the rest of her life.