What's on the box this week?

'Defying Gravity' (BBC 2, Wednesday) - Set in the near future, 'Defying Gravity' revolves around the exploits of eight astronauts from five countries - four men and four women - who embark on a mysterious six-year international space mission through the solar system. But they soon discover that their real assignment is not at all what they thought. Only hours from leaving Earth's orbit for Venus, aboard the spaceship Antares, two of the eight novice astronauts mysteriously develop heart problems. For ship's engineer Ajay Sharma and mission commander Rollie Crane, it means a premature return to Earth, and replacement by Maddux Donner, an experienced astronaut who lives under the shadow of a previous mission during which he was forced to abandon two people on Mars, and Ted Shaw, who will have to leave behind his wife, Eve, at Mission Control. Donner's arrival, however, disturbs beautiful young astronaut Zoe Barnes, who is linked to him by a strange dream and a romantic encounter from their early training days. The news, though, delights the sensual Nadia Schilling. Although nearly every facet of life on the Antares is broadcast to avid viewers on Earth by documentarian Paula Morales, there is also a hidden force that appears to be controlling events from within the spacecraft. _____________________________________________________________ 'Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year' (RTE 1, Thursday) - David McWilliams hosts the annual awards ceremony which recognises the top entrepreneurs in the country. Winners will be announced in three categories - Industry, International and Emerging. One of these winners will be crowned the Entrepreneur of the Year 2009. There are three nominations for the Special Award. From his base near Cashel in County Tipperary, Aidan O'Brien has risen to the top of one of the most competitive sports of all. Taking highly-strung and highly-bred thoroughbreds under his care, the unrivalled know-how of O'Brien transforms them into supreme equine athletes, leaving his Arab, American and European competitors trailing in his wake. A former presenter for RTE, Morgan O'Sullivan has been a key figure in Ireland's film industry for decades. After making a documentary on the hugely popular 'Hawaii Five-O', O'Sullivan decided to make a film in Ireland for an American audience. He brought many of the heads of department from 'Hawaii Five-O' over to work, hiring Irish people to work under them - and learn. The goal, O'Sullivan believes, is to have a solid and viable industry working at all levels from the big-scale movies being shot here through to indigenous films. In 1963, Tony Scott and his UCD colleague, Tom Burke, went to the US where they visited a science fair and decided that this type of hands-on science was something that Irish students could benefit from, by taking science outside the four walls of the classroom and showing that it is all around. And so the Young Scientists' Exhibition was born. _____________________________________________________________ 'Creameries' (RTE 1, Friday) - Many Irish people of a certain vintage will remember fondly trips to the creamery. For them, this programme will bring back memories of summers long ago. For others, it will hold a mirror to an existence that is no more. The first co-operative creamery in Ireland was established in Drumcollagher, Co Limerick, in 1889. At the time, the movement, founded by Horace Plunkett and friends, was regarded with suspicion and caution. However, the advantages of creameries were soon recognised and farmers took to the new technology with enthusiasm. The arrival of the cheque from the creamery manager each month afforded an income for the farming community - an income that was welcome and relied on to provide the basic necessities of rural life. In time, new technologies and amalgamations caused the creameries to become obsolete and buildings that once threaded the Irish countryside were made redundant. There is now not one creamery operating as the old branch creameries once did and a way of life that existed for over 80 years is no more. _____________________________________________________________ 'Guatemala: Riding With The Devil' (CH4, Friday) - 'Unreported World' travels to Guatemala City, where bus drivers are being murdered at a rate of one every other day as part of a campaign of extortion that threatens to bring the city to its knees. Extortion is the main source of income for Guatemala's criminal gangs, earning them millions of dollars a year, and the drivers are killed to instil fear as the gangs maintain their grip on the city. The two main gangs in Guatemala, Mara Salvatrucha and Gang 18, have evolved into highly organised criminal networks, which infiltrate the bus companies in order to protect their interests. _____________________________________________________________ Movie Of The Week: 'The Terminal' (RTE 1, Saturday) - Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones are directed by Steven Spielberg in this true tale of an eastern European visitor who becomes a resident of a New York airport terminal when a war breaks out and erases his country from the map, voiding his passport. Over his long stay in the airport, he makes friends with the airport staff and falls in love with a flight attendant.