So, anyway, there I was dropping in to see my old friends Seoige and O'Shea. Something was up. Grainne seemed jumpy and emotional and Joe was nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile her sister, Other Grainne, was standing there, watching me like a hawk.

"Where's Joe?" I ask.

"He's gone away on... a holiday," says Other Grainne, as her sister nervously makes cups of tea in a lovely dress. Her hands seem to be shaking too much to pour the milk.

"Hmmm," I say. "But all of his clothes are still in the wardrobe... And his car is still here. In fact, his seat on the couch is still warm."

There's a sharp intake of breath from Grainne. She drops a cup and starts to cry. "He had to leave in... a hurry," says Other Grainne coldly.

"And you've been a great support to your sister, I assume?" I ask.

"Well, I came to help around the studio," says Other Grainne with a smug smile. "She needs all the help she can get while Joe's... away."

"Hmm," I say, stroking my chin. I look out across the back-lot at RTE and notice a freshly dug garden where a dog is sniffing curiously. What is going on here? Joe and Grainne were never quite right for each other, but could a total lack of chemistry be an excuse for murder? Meanwhile, Grainne is hitting the drinks cabinet, while Other Grainne is busy sticking her head onto old publicity photos of Seoige and O'Shea.

"Anyway," says Other Grainne, sniffing the Pritt Stick and looking lovely. "We're quite busy. We've got Michael D Higgins, that triplet who nearly drowned and the High Kings coming around for tea and we have to get ready."

"I remember when Joe used to help out at times like this," I say sadly.

"Well, Joe's not here now!" snaps Other Grainne. "I think you should go. You're upsetting Grainne." (Grainne is weeping, keening, and drinking gin on the freshly dug garden for some reason.)

So I'm escorted from the set and I watch the show from the visitors' lounge. Grainne and Other Grainne are slick and smiling with lovely hair and sparkling eyes. You'd never know Joe had been there at all. Every issue is still dealt with in the same light sparkly manner – whether it be Michael D Higgins talking about the credit crunch, psychic Fergus Gibson giving us Posh and Becks horoscopes, or Mary Phelan discussing the disappearance of her sister. There were also some new regular items – a book slot in which two bibliophiles have to convince us of the worth of particular books, a famous person appears with a family member, and Pamela Flood guides us through her "perfect day". My favourite new bit features 2FM DJ Cormac Battle going to see animals in a zoo (there's nothing that can't be improved by the appearance of a sleepy cheetah cub). Other Grainne's resolve flagged a little during the more serious items. When Mary O'Rourke and David Quinn debated the US presidential election on Wednesday, she looked bored stiff. And some of the links were fluffed. But then I'm sure it's hard to get the hang of the Seoige show's patented "we're sitting on the couch bantering, and suddenly one of us is purposefully striding towards the camera" link.

I have to say, however, that there was something resembling real-live television chemistry between Grainne and Other Grainne. I mean, after 30 years of sisterhood, there would probably have to be. So while Seoige is generally superficial and fluffy, it's more than just a lovely hair and smile completion; there's now a sisterly reality at the heart of it all. So whatever happened to Joe O'Shea... perhaps it's for the best, eh?

You see, some men just can't handle a strong, sexy, career woman. That's the message of both Candace Bushnell's Lipstick Jungle (reviewed last week) and Darren Star's Cashmere Mafia, two almost identical 'dramedys' from the people behind Sex in the City. Both shows feature rich women who are bestest friends and meet regularly in the swishest restaurants in New York, in between managing inept menfolk and being high-powered at work.

The main difference between the two is that Bushnell's offering sees this as an empowered and empowering situation, while Star's millionaires weep into their cocktails and seem strangely defenceless in the face of the world's misogyny. After Juliet Draper (Miranda Otto), boss of Stanton Hall Hotels and Resorts, discovers her husband is having yet another affair, she says (ahem), "I'm not excusing him, but look at what a man gives up to be with one of us. We make more money. We rise higher. We take up more space. We are as far from the idea of a wife he grew up with as it's possible to be and still wear his ring and go by his last name."

Boo hoo, being married to a sexy millionaire lady sounds like absolute hell. Furthermore, being a sexy millionaire lady sounds like absolute hell. By the end of the pilot, Mia (Lucy Liu) is dumped by her fiancé for being more successful than him, and Zoe (Frances O'Connor) utters the classic line, "The whole 'having it all' thing – I think it's a crock." If you want your intelligence insulted and are nostalgic for a period when married women weren't allowed work, you'll love Cashmere Mafia.

I thought TV3s How the Irish Have Sex would be an instructional show with diagrams, but as I sat there with my sketchbook and crayons, I was surprised to discover it was actually quite a thoughtful, unsensational programme about Irish people's sexual experiences. The first episode dealt with virginity, and we heard from, amongst others, a religious 18-year-old who was refraining from sex, a bisexual woman, a gay activist, a football team, the employees of a hair salon, and many couples of varying age. Everything was left uncommented on and unjudged. The most memorable moment came from Nancy and Paddy D'Arcy, aged 76 and 78, as they remembered consummating their marriage on Bray Head half a century before. "It was lovely," said Paddy unselfconsciously.

In contrast, the first episode of RTE's My Generation, a programme about the lives of Irish teenagers, felt under-researched, didn't have a wide enough pool of kids to talk to, and contained a little too much narrative from Anna Nolan. The first rule of good television is 'show, don't tell' and there was a little too much 'telling' here. Sometimes this took the form of 'innocent questioning', so as Paul from Terenure College trained in a boxing club, Anna said – "while many young men have found violence in Ireland today, I wonder if this is his motivation for taking up the sport?" I suppose that could be it, but we'll never know because that clunker of a question coloured his response.

The problem really was lack of scale. It would be great to see a programme like this following these kids for a whole year, over which a more nuanced picture of teen-life might develop. In the absence of this, there was a lot of stating the obvious – teenagers are confused? Well, so are television reviewers. Where is Joe O'Shea anyway? I'm really beginning to worry.

pfreyne@tribune.ie