Proof is an Irish crime drama with the ugly (bald, enervated) Finbar Lynch playing Terry Corcoran, a name with a reassuring collection of 'r's and 'c's that almost (but not quite) matches for street cred the name John McCain (Bruce Willis' persona in the Die Hard series, the most recent of which I saw tonight).

Lynch plays a journalist. Hence the 'ugly' epithet. I mean, how do you plausibly cast an investigative journalist who writes for a local newspaper? Totally bald, Corcoran is the ex husband of the stunning Maureen Boland (Orla Brady, what a gorg gal!) and he is not impressed with her new squeeze (sorry, the hard-boiled style comes with the territory).

DVD Verdict, a review Web site, says Corcoran is "a once-respected member of the press now stuck in a dead-end job with a hack rag newspaper". OK, that's how you bestow grace: make him suffer enough and we'll forgive the journalist for being our conscience. No matter how corrupt we are, we always find someone to blame.

The blurb on most sites addresses the more visible elements of the plot, which has something to do with illegal migrants from eastern-European countries. There's a shipping container-load of dead bodies. A politician is present so, we assume, he'll be implicated. How the most prominent institutions (journalism, politics) have sunk in our esteem!

People keep getting killed. And because we're talking prostitution of the young women coming in, we've got plenty of segments inside 'low' dives where men of substance get their cheap thrills. It's like a Bangkok strip club.

Corcoran's sidekick is Albanian defector Nina Kurpreka (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and she's looking for her sister. When she takes evidence in the form of a page spat from a printer in the coroner's office, she falls in with the journo and they scope out the safe houses where the girls are housed.

We witness a rape by the darstardly pimp who metes out rough justice to keep the chicks in thrall. Against such moral terrorists, it's easy to make even a journo look good. This is what they're supposed to be doing (uncovering corruption), not like ex-wife Maureen, conscripted into enemy territory when she starts work as media relations manager for the soon-to-be-exposed politician.

A flack's worse than a hack any day.

The makers of the drama also made Spooks, a spy drama that also aired on the ABC, but ended (alas!) last year. Proof will air again for the next three Fridays. To be sure, I'll watch.