PRIMAL SCREEN 20/20 Vision

It is said that most New Year’s resolutions are dust before the end of January, the best intentions scattered to the chill winter wind. So it’s probably best to start small, even if your ambitions are big and so, in no particular order, here are my resolutions for smallscreen watching this year:

1 Stop pretending to have watched shows I haven’t. For example, HBO’s much garlanded Succession, of which it could be said (as indeed I have) “it is brilliantly layered, modern take on King Lear’. Note: most TV dramas can be described in Shakespearean terms and spoofed accordingly, except maybe Mrs Brown’s Boys.

2 Watch Succession. Brian Cox never better (reportedly) in this Machiavellian tale of a dastardly and dysfunctional New York media dynasty battling itself in a brilliant reworking of King Lear (reportedly).

3 Do some of those Karl Henry exercises that usher in the ad breaks on Operation Transformation. In the past, I usually last as long as Karl the Motivator is on screen and then as soon as the ads kick in, it’s kettle (not kettle bell) time. Then it’s back to the chair for triceps dips when Karl returns. Is it true that the OT exercise guru can actually see you from his Black Mirror place?

4 Stop flipping through five gazillion shows on Netflix without actually watching anything. We may live in a Golden Age of TV Choice but that brings its own issues of ‘too much on’.

5 Accept that Dancing with the Stars is in fact a popularity contest and not a true measure of terpsichorean ability as we know from such light-footed hoofers as Des ‘Special Powers’ Cahill and Marty ‘It’s All in the Face’ Morrissey.

6 Finish watching season three of The Crown. Made it as far as episode eight before Newsnight’s version of ‘ The Crown’ (aka The Clown) proved that the truth (if that’s what it was) will always be stranger (and sweatier) than any fiction.

7 Try and get at least one question right on University Challenge. Sometimes I cheat by watching, rewinding and then nonchalantly throwing out the answer to Schrödinger’s equation or some such. “You’re only fooling yourself!’ says my wife. Of course, this is not true as I had just fooled her (and the cat). So there!

8 Stop looking for the next Game of Thrones. It’s over. And no, it’s not

The Witcher or the imminent Sandman (Netflix) or Amazon’s new take on The Lord of the Rings (anticipated in 2021) or Mrs Brown’s Boys or even HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel, all of which are entirely different shows.

9 Find the fun replacement for last year’s Fleabag, Game Face and Catastrophe.

10 Write a piece in which there is no mention of Mrs Brown’s Boys.

Donal O’Donoghue