Rules of the Game, BBC One review - feminist workplace drama topples into farce

★★ RULES OF THE GAME, BBC ONE Feminist workplace drama topples into farce 

Screenwriter Ruth Fowler's characters turn into caricatures

The BBC have billed this as a “four-part thriller about sexual politics in the modern workplace”, which is slightly misleading because it looks as though it’s taking place in about 1983.

The Apprentice, Series 16, BBC One review - will they never learn?

★★★★ THE APPRENTICE, SERIES 16, BBC ONE Return of Lord Sugar and his gang of hopefuls

Welcome return of Lord Sugar and his gang of hopefuls

“Will they never learn?” people must have been screaming as they watched the opening episode of the 16th series of The Apprentice – I certainly was. After all these years, the hopefuls vying to take Lord Sugar's £250,000 to invest in their business idea seem blissfully unaware of how daft they look with their strutting boasts. I know it's a competition, but not in how to sound the most foolish.

The Tourist, BBC One review - gripping Outback thriller from the Williams brothers

★★★★ THE TOURIST, BBC ONE It's kill or be killed for Jamie Dornan's amnesiac protagonist

It's kill or be killed for Jamie Dornan's amnesiac protagonist

This latest outing from the astonishingly prolific Jack and Harry Williams (The Missing, Baptiste, The Widow, Strangers etc) gives itself a huge leg-up by exploiting the epic lonely spaces of the Australian Outback.

Best of 2021: TV

BEST OF 2021: TV A flavourful selection of telly's tastiest moments over the past year

A flavourful selection of telly's tastiest moments over the past year

There's so much stuff on TV, in all its many multi-streaming hats, that I somehow haven't got around to watching Succession. Apparently it's the best TV show ever made.

Oh well, there's bound to be another one along in a minute. Theartsdesk's eagle-eyed reviewers have found plenty to amuse themseves with elsewhere during 2021, and we parade our particular predilections below. Adam Sweeting

A Very British Scandal, BBC One review - the wild life and times of the Duchess of Argyll

★★★ A VERY BRITISH SCANDAL, BBC ONE Claire Foy stars in notorious tale of aristocratic sleaze

Claire Foy stars in notorious tale of aristocratic sleaze

The title might provoke a quick double-take. Wasn’t A Very British Scandal that series about Jeremy Thorpe and Norman Scott, starring Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw?

The Girl Before, BBC One review - high-tech dream home contains many a heartache

★★★ THE GIRL BEFORE, BBC ONE High-tech dream home contains many a heartache

Compulsion, obsession, deception and confusion

Would you be willing to play the guinea pig in a designer-superhome created by a deranged architect? That is one question posed by this four-part drama (adapted by JP Delaney from his own novel), a kind of haunted house mystery underpinned by the damaged psychological states of its protagonists.

Landscapers, Sky Atlantic review - Olivia Colman and David Thewlis star as a pair of convicted killers

★★★ LANDSCAPERS, SKY ATLANTIC Is post-modern jokiness suitable for real-life murder mystery?

Is post-modern jokiness suitable for this real-life murder mystery?

In 2014, Susan and Christopher Edwards were jailed for a minimum of 25 years for the killing of Susan’s parents, William and Patricia Wycherley. They’d been shot dead in 1998, and lay buried in their garden at 2 Blenheim Close, Mansfield for 15 years.

You Don't Know Me, BBC One review - true love meets inner-city crime wave

★★★ YOU DON'T KNOW ME, BBC ONE True love meets inner-city crime wave

Adaptation of Imran Mahmood's novel is strongly cast but slightly preposterous

I sympathised with the prosecuting barrister when she put it to the court that the accused, a man called Hero (Samuel Adewunmi), was “using his closing speech to construct a work of fiction”.