ZACC MILNE SERIES
ZACC MILNE TV

Workhorse queen Shangela may have had her moment of RuDemption, but after being denied the chance to snatch the crown, the cruel additional twists to the show made it feel slightly craven and less enjoyable than usual.

ZACC MILNE SERIES

RuPaul's Drag Race served a double whammy with its 10th series following straight after the trauma of All Stars 3. The Irish incarnations of First Dates and Gogglebox also wielded easy comedy, as idiosyncratic behaviour and irreverent humour transformed the franchises into their own separate entities. It was all the fun of Ireland's traditional parlour party pieces beamed into your living room. With its well-chosen judges featuring Michelle Visage and a permanently bemused Jason Byrne, it managed to breathe new life into a withered format, its good natured, giddy tone moving it away from its laboured, noxious British counterpart. What it lacked in dancing dogs it made up for in spirited performances, with body-bending dancer Zacc Milne showcasing the best of modern Ireland, and singing granny Evelyn Williams becoming the nation's sweetheart. The home-grown hit of 2018 was Ireland's Got Talent.

ZACC MILNE TV

Then there was the surprise win for the dazzling drag queen Courtney Act (Shane Jenek) in the first Celebrity Big Brother of the year, defeating the drab lads and their redundant banter and filling nightly prime-time TV with conversations about inclusion, gender-fluidity, intersectionality and LGBT history delivered with her trademark wit and whip-sharp humour.

The love-bomb that is Netflix's Queer Eye – which gifted its down-trodden subjects with self-respect and positivity, with the irrepressible Fab Five displaying a touching humanity and pathos that has been desperately lacking from our screens – became a salve for weary souls. This year has seen reality television have a psychological breakthrough where kindness and vulnerability have become the most celebrated attributes of the best shows of 2018. They are now an act of self-care yes, ironically they have become a sanctuary from the grimness of real life. In 2018 the reality shows that have been most popular and most effective have been escapist.

Not only are people struggling with the trauma that rolling news vomits up daily, but the fictional television they are binging on is injected with dark, complex themes where any glimmers of hope are squashed under a jackboot of nihilism. The unnecessary nastiness and toxic behaviour that viewers have normally relished is becoming a turn-off – this year finally saw the end of Big Brother, after it turned into the uninvited guest that refused to leave, and humiliation game-show The X Factor has lost its iron grip on its prime-time audience, haemorrhaging viewers with each wink of Cowell's tiny, coal-like eyes. With world leaders taking their cues from the tropes of reality telly this year – from Theresa May creakily dancing around like a dusty cadaver on Britain's Got Talent to Donald Trump helping us all believe we are stuck in some sort of doomsday Apprentice Matrix – reality telly in 2018 has started to cautiously move in a different direction.

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