Star Trek’s Kate Mulgrew has beamed down to the west of Ireland for the likable if clichéd thriller The Galway Bay Murders (RTÉ One, Sunday, 9.30pm).
She brings the same steely quality that was a feature of her tenure as Captain Kathryn Janeway, to the part of a New York police officer on secondment in Galway, where she becomes entangled in a homicide inquiry after a woman’s body turns up in a bog.
It’s The Field meets a glamorous US cop drama from the 1980s or further back. John B Keane with a bit of Crockett and Tubbs stitched into the lining.
The “Yank abroad” getting their nose into some local bother is a hard-to-kill staple of Irish film and television. But Mulgrew brings something new to the formula. She is magnetically flinty, and there are intriguing hints about a recent trauma that has sent her from New York to Ireland. The Galway Bay Murders also benefits from a strong supporting cast.
Another Star Trek alumnus, Colm Meaney, pops up as a no-nonsense local sergeant and Love/Hate’s John Connors plays the beat garda who joins Nora Savage (Mulgrew) in her investigation.
The actual mystery is a bit ho-hum and also behind the times insofar as it leans into the now frowned-upon ...