Hung, the new HBO comedy/drama which debuted last week on More 4, has a very simple pitch: a disappointed all-American man with a large penis decides to become a prostitute. Although the programme probably started to take shape when a letter to Penthouse Forum went to the wrong address, HBO nonetheless decided to film it beautifully and make it much, much more than just the story of one man's gifted appendage.

Indeed, in the opening sequences, big phallic cranes can be seen pulling down large industrial buildings in Detroit, crushing machines mangle all-American cars, and public buildings go self-consciously into decline (they flaunt their broken windows and bad paint jobs like two-bit whores!).

Meanwhile, our hero, Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane), a former college basketball star, is now a divorced and underpaid high-school coach, heavily in debt and living in the house he inherited from his parents. "Thank God they aren't around to watch the country they love going to shit," says Drecker heavy-handedly, lest we didn't quite get the point of all those lingering shots of urban decay.

Yup, the subtext in Hung is laid on so thick even my cat got it. "Drecker symbolises America, right?" she meowed.

And she was right. Drecker does symbolise America, or at the very least, the American male; a beautiful bruiser who's seen better days, now subjected to one humiliation after another – an invasive prostate exam, a high-school basketball team that keeps losing, a house fire which leaves him living in a tent, and finally, being rejected by his own kids when they chose to go live with their mother.

Unlike the strong silent heroes of yore, Drecker can't stop narrating his emotional state. "I used to be a big deal," he groans. "I used to be going somewhere," he moans. "Now all I ever seem to do is try not to drown," he whines. "When did life become something you buy?" he pleads.

Other people are also keen to talk about how far Drecker has sunk. "In high school you were a king," says his highly-strung, former beauty queen ex-wife (Anne Heche). "You were beautiful and athletic and smart and popular... and hung."

"What am I now?" he asks masochistically.

"Now you're just hung," she spits.

Anyway, after a visit to a 'get rich' seminar and a joyless sexual encounter with a local poet called Tanya (Jane Adams), Drecker finally decides that the answer to his financial and emotional problems is whoring out his man parts, with Tanya as his enthusiastic pimp (Fás would probably have recommended something similar).

"I wasted my youth," he moans characteristically in this eureka moment. "I've got a burnt-out house and a job that pays shit. I'm pretty much at the precipice here. My big dick is all I have." (I know what you're thinking: 'if I had a penny for every time I said those words').

Anyway, it's hard to tell whether the viewer is supposed to think that prostitution is a step up or a step down for Drecker, but he himself seems to think it's a good thing, which is a nicely subversive note on which to end the first episode. For all its silliness, Hung is a parody of the male midlife crisis. It's so zinging with subtext about American decay and male vulnerability (whininess) that it might just develop into something interesting if it resists taking itself too ­seriously.

"My big dick is all I have," was not a phrase that featured in John O'Donoghue's Resignation Speech. If the size of the former Ceann Comhairle's lad was in any way a comfort to him at that difficult time, he chose to keep it to himself... unlike many other petty issues and grievances which he was more than happy to rattle off in wounded tones.

For over half-an-hour, his sing-song, clerical voice outlined arcane details of the expenses he had run up as Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, and berated the media, the opposition and the doubting public for not recognising the earthbound saint we had unknowingly harboured in our midst all those years.

"'Tis a far greater thing I do now..." O'Donoghue informed us before listing all of the cultural institutions he had built singlehandedly with his bejewelled fingers.

"Is that Robert Emmet? Is he being executed for Ireland or something?" asked my cat.

"No, it's worse than that," I explained. "It's John O'Donoghue and he's being made to subsist on just a TD's salary and a ministerial pension with no further access to the government jet, minstrels, pleasure gardens, harems or milk-maid outfits. For him that's a fate worse than death. He may even have to travel on Ryanair from now on."

"Christ!" said my cat.

"Very like Christ," I agreed.

"Forgive them father, for they know not what they do," said the former Ceann Comhairle.

Suddenly ominous evil music filled the room and a Panorama reporter, Vivian White, announced that he had uncovered the secret of Ryanair's success.

Sigh. Sometimes something can look and sound like investigative journalism, yet not actually be investigative journalism. Panorama: Why Hate Ryanair? was a case in point.

Despite featuring a good dose of Brass Eye-style hyperbole ("the word 'ruthless' is written right through Ryanair like a stick of seaside rock," said Vivian sexily), some scary music, footage of planes, and some important-seeming interviews with silhouettes, it ultimately told us nothing about the low-cost airline that we didn't already know. Ryanair, it turns out, is the fastest growing airline charging the lowest fares because it skimps (slightly) on customer service, is relentlessly efficient, forbids unions and squeezes the most from its workforce, its suppliers, and customers who don't read the fine print.

Surprised? I didn't think so. Despite Michael O'Leary's protestations about Panorama's nefarious anti-Ryanair agenda, in saying nothing new whilst repeatedly asserting that Ryanair's prices were criminally cheap, this exposé quickly turned into a 30-minute ad for the airline. As O'Leary said himself when White ambushed him outside the airline's offices. "There's no secret to the success of Ryanair. We're offering the lowest fares in Europe and are offering the best customer service [sic], which is why 67 million people this year will fly with us." And he paused before sticking the boot in with a tight rigid smile: "far more people than will watch Panorama, as you well know... or who watch the BBC."

pfreyne@tribune.ie