Running Mate TG4
Off The Rails RTE
One Brothers & Sisters C4

WE have entered a dangerous new era in television, where we must all tread more carefully. In the UK, the independent regulator Ofcom fined ITV's GMTV 3m for "widespread and systematic deception" on its premium-rate phone-in competitions. Back on our own RTE and Twink has been accused of giving preference to a girl she knew on the Class Act talent competition. Twink descended from the heavens like a kamikaze pilot or an incontinent pigeon and rained a shitstorm of retaliation on her critics that they will never forget. Go, Twink.

So it is with an open but heavy heart that I inform you that I know Marcus Fleming, who wrote the new TG4 six-part dramedy Running Mate. I was also in college with playwright Conor McPherson, who came up with the original idea. And moments before I sat down to watch it, I got a text from a friend who works in the production company, telling me about it. (That just about pushed me over the edge. ) We live in an incestuous society of brown envelopes and backscratching. And as far as Running Mate is concerned, it was almost inevitable that I would now review . . . and, in true Irish style, slate . . . it. Slate it like I've never slated anything before. Pucker up, suckers!

But, I regret to inform you, that this yarn of politicians brought down by dalliances with prostitutes in Prague, dodgy property deals, unwanted teenage pregnancies and alcoholic primary school teachers is told with great devilment. Set in the fictional gaeltacht town of Carrigeen in Co Kerry, it has a soapy quality, with a huge cast of characters and probably one too many subplots, like a superior episode of Ballykissangelmeets The West Wing. In one scene, a character looks at the newsreader on the television and says, "See her, Catherine Kelly, she was two years behind me in college." It happens to us all sooner or later.

Sister, you're singing my song.

Fianna Fail TD Paudie Counihan (played by Eamon Hunt as a lovable rogue with a black heart) topples the Tanaiste by showing a webcam clip of him having sex with two prostitutes in a hotel room in Prague. The Tanaiste's office is decorated with red drapes in Oval Office/dance hall chic. He is obviously upset. "I'm not the one paying two young ones to stick a dildo up his hole, " Paudie says. "By God, they'll stop calling you a racist after this."

The cast includes Denis Conway, who plays the Fianna Fail running mate turned Independent TD Carrie Crowley, Frank Kelly, whose OTT reaction shots were too am-dram, agus Don Wycherley, who is a bit samey and a distraction due to all the gravelly voiceover work.

Anyway, last week, I yearned for comedy. This week, I got it.

The nihilistic Prosperity and David McWilliams camp The Generation Game have left us all crying for our mammies.

McWilliams strode through Dublin Airport surrounded by air hostesses like Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can.

I like parma ham and honey roast ham, but this was too hammy even for me. So, in my search for happy-clappy TV, I turned to the eighth season of Off the Rails instead. I love makeovers on Mary, mother of many, from Sligo and tests of icky french nail kits. (But, first, in another Twink-inspired disclaimer: Caroline Morahan is a pal of mine. ) I'd say this either way: she and Pamela Flood treat the camera like an old friend and happily lark about and mug for the camera. It's hard to remember who presented this show before them. In this first episode, model Glenda Gilson showed off her Ivana Trumplike wardrobe. Problem was, she needed a makeover a hell of lot more than all those Marys of Sligo.

Sally Field has picked up an Emmy for playing the eccentric matriarch Nora Walker in the compulsive Brothers & Sisters.

This show is nepotastic.

Executive producer Ken Olin's wife Patricia Wettig plays a woman who bore a child by Nora's late husband; Olin also played a swarthy priest in Falcon Crest with Susan Sullivan, who turned up in Brothers & Sisters this week as waspish neighbour Miranda Jones, whose daughter was played by Jenna Elfman, who was Sullivan's stepdaughter in Dharma & Greg. Now that was a nice piece of casting.

Last week, Nora read her creative writing class a story based on her family . . . and, winkwink, the plot from Brothers & Sisters. One student thought it overly dramatic, saying, "I'm waiting for someone to get amnesia and a long-lost evil twin." Two explanations Twink could have tried out during the rumpus in Class Act.