The TV You Can’t Miss This Autumn

Did you spend your summer wondering why Made in Chelsea were walking around Manhattan? Have you resolved to give your brain a rest from entitled millenials but don’t know where to direct your gaze? We pick some of the television highlights of the Autumn. Set the series record now.

The Fall
Jamie Dornan. That isn’t all but it’s a way to grab your attention. Before the Northern Irish actor was cast as supposedly sexy anti-hero Christian Grey in next year’s Fifty Shades of Grey, he was Paul Spector, a handsome Belfast citizen who is also a serial killer targeting young women in BBC’s The Fall. The first season was the creepiest debut we’ve seen in a long time and Gillian Anderson’s DCI Stella Gibson, parachuted in to catch the killer, was sublime. She took no prisoners and reclaimed the white shirt and pencil skirt combo from the stock image bargain bin. Season two of The Fall will return this Autumn.

Cilla
The wild Saturday nights in of your youth may have been punctuated with episodes of Blind Date. Or maybe you went on actual dates. Either way, the show presenter, Cilla Black, is a national treasure, even if she’s from another nation. This three-part biopic from ITV explores the early days of the flame haired singer’s career. Expect short skirts and powerful ballads. Cilla airs later this month.

Charlie
Ever since RTE found their production feet with Love/Hate we’ve been curious about their next move. Charlie is a three-part series about former Taoiseach and luxury shirt lover Charles Haughey. Aiden Gillen will bring the political force to life with Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as PJ Mara, his spin-doctor. With such thespians on the job expect some classy Reeling in the Years-esque drama.

The Knick
Clive Owen as a cocaine addicted surgeon in a turn of the century New York hospital in The Knick is getting all the critics excited. This visceral show takes on poverty, corruption, race and class in the pilot and does not hold back when it comes to depicting medical reality. Grey’s Anatomy this is not. Also our own Eve Hewson is stealing scenes as nurse Lucy Elkins. Here she is opposite Owen and holding her own, as it were.

Downton
Are you still enthralled by the goings-on of Downton Abbey? Or are you just tuning in at this stage to see what Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess is going to say while surrounded by very wealthy people who can’t seem to crack a smile at their good luck of being born at the right end of the social pyramid in an era before the washing machine? The trailer for season five is out now and Lady Mary is now carrying on with a handsome brunette gent, if you wanted the very long story short.

Jeanne Sutton @jeannedesutun