Published: Wednesday, 13th January, 2010 4:54pm

What's On the Box this week?

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'Operation Transformation' (RTE 1, Wednesday) - Back for a third series, this popular lifestyle transformation programme returns as an hour-long experience this time around.

The health of the Irish nation is currently under threat from an epidemic of diabetes and clinical obesity rates that are higher than anywhere else in Europe. In less than 20 years, it is estimated that as many as 50 per cent of the nation will be obese.

'Operation Transformation' hopes to address this issue by raising awareness of poor diet and lifestyle and suggesting a range of alternatives which can improve overall health. Presented by Gerry Ryan, and guided through a range of customised weight loss and fitness plans devised by a panel of four experts, five leaders will help navigate a group of people towards a healthier lifestyle.

The panel of experts include the familiar faces of fitness expert Karl Henry and weight loss expert Dr Eva Orsmond. Joining the team for the first time this year will be HSE clinical psychologist Dr Eddie Murphy and motivational coach Enda McNulty. The leaders are supported with expert nutritional and fitness advice along with guidance which will help address some of the underlying causes which prompted the weight gain, as well as tips and techniques which will help.

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'Transatlantic Sessions' (RTE 1, Friday) - 'Transatlantic Sessions' brings together the best of Nashville, Ireland and Scotland in a format developed by director Mike Alexander that affords, in the words of one critic, "a unique insight into the sheer joy of making music" and represented, as another more pithily put it, "the greatest backporch shows ever".

For this series, a beautiful old hunting lodge at the entrance to Glen Lyon near Aberfeldy in the Perthshire Highlands was chosen and top vocal and instrumental exponents of country and Celtic traditions gather to rehearse and play together. Leavening the intimacy of the music-making through each of the six programmes in the series is a strong element of spectacular Highland scenic photography while the informality of "backstage" conversation and stories serves to highlight the series' genuinely historic qualities of collaboration and performance.

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'Empire Of The Seas: Heart Of Oak' (BBC 2, Friday) - For centuries, the Royal Navy helped make Britain one of the world's great maritime superpowers. In this four-part series, Dan Snow goes beyond battle tactics to reveal a surprising naval history and how the navy shaped modern Britain.

Beginning with a dramatic re-telling of 16th and 17th-century history, Snow looks at how victory over the Armada proved a turning point in Britain's national story. England was transformed into a seafaring nation whose source of future wealth and power lay on the oceans.

'Piers Morgan On Shanghai' (ITV, Tuesday) - In this week's episode of the series, Morgan visits the gleaming mega-city of Shanghai, the friendly face of capitalism that Communist China shows to the world.

He shows how Shanghai is set to become the world's greatest economic superpower within the next 20 years and sets off to explore the city to discover what will make it the mightiest, richest, most riotous place on earth.

He takes in the highest hotel in the world, the busiest port in the world and meets some of the people living and working in the city, including a multi-million pound heiress who built her own apartment block.

"It's hard to give you a sense of Shanghai, but its ambition oozes from every pore," says Morgan. "The closest parallel is Victorian London with its super-rich and desperate poor; a cauldron of construction and consumption on an immense scale. It's a fast forward Industrial Revolution."

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Movie Of The Week: 'Ladder 49' (RTE 2, Friday) - Joaquin Phoenix and John Travolta are Baltimore firefighters, one of whom gets trapped in a blazing high rise. Flashbacks chronicle his memories of being a rookie, fighting his first fire, bonding with fellow firefighters, falling in love and having children. A bit schmaltzy here and there, but with good special effects.