The Last Word, April 12, 2008

There’s been a lot of talk lately about IRELAND, the latest smash-hit TV show to capture the popular imagination, as Lost or The Sopranos have done before.  You can’t escape the hype: IRELAND is all the papers write about these days, and the TV news seems to cover nothing else.  We asked some of our staff writers for their thoughts on this cultural sensation.  Here’s what they said:

Rod Reckinball, movie critic: The first thing to say about IRELAND is that it’s painfully slow.  In fact, it’s boring.  Where are the explosions, the gunfights and helicopter crashes?  Where are the city-smashing monsters, the brilliant but eccentric scientist-heroes, the gratuitously nude young blondes?  Why are all the people so pasty-faced and ugly?  Where’s Kiefer Sutherland?  Why does it rain all the time?  Is it supposed to be, like, a metaphor?  Is IRELAND some kind of Danish indie movie?  If I’m gonna watch something all talky and serious, I’ll go for The West Wing instead.  Also, sheesh, IRELAND is like, always on… change the channel already.  I wanna see something else.

Dermot Macaroon, business editor: From a commercial standpoint, IRELAND is far-fetched, to say the least.  No economy, no society could sustain the overstretching and fiscal recklessness shown in this supposedly realistic TV show.  Are we actually supposed to believe in those thousands of 5am parents with their three-hour commutes and crippling mortgages?  Would any government that rich really allow its health system to decline into such a backward condition?  And surely nobody is as obsessed with status, with conspicuous consumption, with lavish, profligate waste, as IRELAND’s upper classes.  It’s a sick soap opera fantasy – but very watchable, I admit.

Jake Yowzer, video game reviewer: This series, IRELAND, is hugely influenced by modern video games, no question.  The random wandering around large outdoor areas that makes up so much of the programme is taken directly from the “Grand Theft Auto” school of gaming, as is all the petty crime stuff (and boy, there’s a lot of crime in IRELAND).  Driving takes up a massive amount of screen time, but this is mainly due to the hilarious levels of traffic: IRELAND sure ain’t no Project Gotham Racing 3.  Obviously, though, the main comparison has to be with The Sims, in that most of the people in IRELAND are just playing out their pointless little lives, toiling away at stupid jobs, decorating their homes in astoundingly ugly designs, and talking predefined, repetitive nonsense.

Annabel Conyngham, literary correspondent: IRELAND is plainly a tragedy, rooted in the everyday, the sad tale of a nation of Prufrocks played wonderfully by a cast of, apparently, millions.  It’s a bold televisual experiment, the juxtaposition of the unbearably mundane with the sudden and unthinkably horrific: nothing is taboo, no atrocity is uncommitted, though thankfully most happen offscreen.  Pain, both personal and collective, is everywhere.  This is not family viewing.  The violence, when it’s shown, is sickening and loaded with consequence.  The sex is unpredictable and messy, but so explicit that it would make Michel Houellebecq blush.  IRELAND is intelligent TV for a new age.  I literally can’t turn it off.