TV Highlights

'Love/hate' (RTE 1, Sunday, 9.30pm) - Final part of the excellent Irish crime drama that has even surpassed the hugely popular first season last year. With Aiden Gillen mesmerising as the gangland boss, this is no-holds barred entertainment where violence and humour make for uneasy bedfellows. As the final strings are plucked, Nidge fills the power vacuum and gets the gang back to business, Rosie has realised what her lover has become, and Darren is devastated when she breaks up with him. Mary finally confronts the extent of Luke's psychosis as she finds him lurking in her bedroom at night. ____________________________________________________________ 'Who Killed Maggie?' (RTE 1, Wednesday, 12.30am) - Stabbed in the back by her own ministers and her closest collaborators; told by the 'conspirators' themselves, this is the incredible story of the final days in power of Margaret Thatcher. Another tale of how a politician many considered untouchable and sacred was, against all the odds, brought down by many closest to her. A lesson for all. _____________________________________________________________ 'Without You' (ITV, Thursday, 9pm) - Adapted from the novel, 'What To Do When Someone Dies' by Nicci French, this drama tells the story of schoolteacher Ellie Manning who is happily married to accountant Greg. But her plan for a romantic evening is cut short when two police officers arrive at her home with news that Greg has been involved in a fatal crash with an unknown female passenger by his side. Alone, Ellie is overwhelmed by grief and uncertainty about her husband, whom she has never had cause to doubt before. The identity of Greg's passenger, businesswoman Milena Livingstone, troubles Ellie and, as the mystery around her husband's death deepens, she finds herself becoming suspicious of everyone, including herself. _____________________________________________________________ 'The Nation's Favourite Bee Gees Song' (ITV, Friday, 9pm) - From 'Massachusetts' to 'You Win Again', 'Words' to 'Chain Reaction', the Gibb Brothers have created an unrivalled volume of hit records around the world - recorded not just by themselves but by other legendary performers, too, including Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. But just what is the greatest Bee Gees song ever? This one-off special celebrates, and tell the stories behind, some of the best-loved songs in music history as it asks the British public to vote for The Nation's Favourite Bee Gees Song. The 90-minute special includes brand new interviews with Robin and Barry Gibb, revealing the fascinating story behind their music which helped to make these giants of the pop world one of the most prolific songwriting outfits of our time. ____________________________________________________________ 'D411' (RTE 2, Saturday, 11.50am) - A series focusing on the lives of young teenagers and the challenges and choices they face. Each episode follows one group: their hopes, fears, anxieties and dreams. They've all been selected because they are ordinary, and - like all ordinary teenagers - every day brings the extraordinary. But, in this series, these ordinary teenagers have been chosen because they also face more particular dilemmas - not drinking, parenthood, bullying, first relationships, being outsiders and identity. In 'D411', the recording devices and publishing tools (iPhones, YouTube, Twitter) are embedded into the lives of our teenagers already. The action cuts regularly from conventional filming to phone-cam footage, interspersing web content and messaging into the narrative to add not just variety but authenticity. ____________________________________________________________ 'About The House' (RTE 1, Tuesday, 8.30pm) - Brian Meaney and Karen Daly's house was built in 2003. Typical of standards of building at that time, their house is poorly insulated and they suffer from a great deal of mould. They want to make their house warm and healthy for their three children and so are instructing OLS Architects to bring their poorly performing house up to passive standards. The PassivHaus Institute, realising that their passive house criteria were unrealistically stringent for existing homes, brought out a new set of rules for retrofits. These new criteria only came out last June and Brian and Karen are the very first people in Ireland to be to be implementing them. ____________________________________________________________ 'Money: Forty Grand' (BBC 2, Tuesday 13th December, 9pm) - Forty thousand pounds is, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the average British income for a household where two adults are working. The concluding episode of Vanessa Engle's series, 'Money', features a set of households all living on this same net amount of money annually and examines how they choose to spend that money. The film investigates the nitty gritty of what people actually spend their money on. It explores value systems to discover how people decide what they can afford and reveals what the choices we all make about money tell us about ourselves. ____________________________________________________________ Film Of The Week: 'The Outlaw Josey Wales' (ITV, Friday, 11.05pm) - Classic western about a peaceful farmer whose life is destroyed when Union Army renegades burn his homestead and murder his wife and child. He follows a violent and twisted path in his single-minded quest for vengeance, assembling a ragtag band of misfits who give him their loyalty and affection. With Clint Eastwood, Chief George and Sondra Locke taking on the worst varmints in the West.