The 80s are back with a bang – and then some – in the sexy, starry and very silly adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s bonkfest, plus Jason Segel’s underrated comedy with Harrison Ford returns

As this starry Jilly Cooper adaptation begins (the cast includes David Tennant, Katherine Parkinson, Danny Dyer, Emily Atack and Aidan Turner), Concorde is blasting across the Atlantic. A couple are joining the mile-high club, climaxing when the plane goes supersonic and a champagne bottle spurts. It’s the 80s, the least subtle decade in modern history and well represented by Rivals. The plot – swaggering rake Rupert Campbell-Black and Irish firebrand Declan O’Hara join forces to undermine Lord Tony Baddingham’s TV empire – is beside the point. The real action is in the affairs, flings, love triangles and bonking. It is the silliest show of the autumn and an absolute tonic. Disney+, from Friday 18 October

There are harsh truths and looming consequences as this underrated dark comedy returns. Jimmy (Jason Segel) is as jittery as ever – in addition to processing bereavement, he’s now dealing with Grace, a client who is in prison partly as a result of his unconventional approach to therapy. Meanwhile, Harrison Ford’s Paul is facing up to mortality and trying to rebuild a few bridges. Shrinking strikes a neat balance between emotional acuity and irreverence and is elevated by numerous fine performances; in particular, Jessica Williams is a ball of amiable energy as Jimmy’s colleague and on/off squeeze Gaby. Apple TV+, from Wednesday 16 October

Kansas City Chiefs player (who, let’s be honest, is best known as Taylor Swift’s boyfriend) Travis Kelce is clearly keen for a TV career: he starred in his own dating show Catching Kelce in 2016, and recently landed his first major acting role in Ryan Murphy’s horror series Grotesquerie. Now he’s a gameshow host, in this series that asks contestants 11 questions based on the US elementary curriculum in an effort to win a $100,000 prize – with the help of some celebrities (whom you may or may not know). He’s certainly got the confidence and charisma. Prime Video, from Wednesday 16 October

Would you hire a lawyer who did his business out of the back of his car? We’ve reached the third season of this drama so perhaps the premise isn’t as absurd as it seems. Mickey Haller’s latest case is personal: Gloria Dayton, an old friend and client, has been murdered. However, he has serious doubts about the suspect arrested for the crime and does some digging himself. Before long, he’s making some well-connected and dangerous enemies. But as Haller goes deeper into an apparent conspiracy, how many of his colleagues will he take with him? Netflix, from Thursday 17 October

The magnificently overblown psychological horror starring Jessica Raine and Peter Capaldi is back. Raine’s perpetually traumatised Lucy faces a new and yet somehow torturously familiar set of challenges: the horror of season one’s conclusion involved the revelation that Lucy (and Capaldi’s demonic Gideon) were trapped in a time loop. This time, they’re in alliance – in one of Lucy’s previous lives she was a detective, and there’s a case the two must try to solve. Raine and Capaldi are excellent in an unapologetically eccentric premise. Prime Video, from Friday 18 October

The number of remakes, reboots and reversions of Ricky Gervais’s epochal cringe-com now runs into double figures. This Australian effort, set during the return to work after Covid, offers a gender-flipped lead: the David Brent character is now a woman, Felicity Ward’s Hannah Howard. It feels both bold and potentially enlivening but in practice subtracts more than it adds: Brent’s wounded masculinity is a crucial component of the original’s appeal whereas Howard is merely tactless and a bit rubbish at her job. This makes for a not particularly funny sitcom. Prime Video, from Friday 18 October

Lots of TV shows are interesting and plenty of them are even compelling or riveting, but few are flat-out FUN. But that's just what you should expect from Rivals, an adaptation of Jilly Cooper's Rutshire novel of the same name from Dominic Treadwell-Collins (EastEnders, A Very English Scandal) that's just packed to the brim with great acting talent too. 

At the centre of the story (and at the centre of the rivalry) is David Tennant as villainous TV titan Lord Tony Baddingham, a grammar school social climber who married into the aristocracy. His chief rival is the blue-blooded sex machine Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) who, fair warning, we get to see entirely in the altogether, while also in the mix is Aidan Turner as hard-bitten journalist Declan O'Hara, who Lord Tony hires to boost ratings on his TV franchise.

Then there's the women, who range from Bella Maclean as Declan's sweet daughter Taggie (who Rupert has his eye on), and Victoria Smurfit as Taggie's wandering mother Maud, to Nafessa Williams as hard-nosed American TV producer Cameron Cook, and Katherine Parkinson as local author Lizzie Vereker - essentially the Jilly Cooper character. 

Rivals starts with sex at Mach 1 on Concorde and that largely sets the tone for what follows in a suitably lavishly produced show that has just enough deeper character moments to keep it bobbing along neatly dramatically, too. And who cares that Rupert Campbell-Black was originally supposed to be blond - Jilly Cooper has given Hassell's Black and the whole project her blessing, so put such niggles aside - if they were even an issue in the first place. (Eight episodes) 

The Aussie version of the comedy is the first to have a female lead

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's comedy arrived on the BBC way back in 2001 and, many international versions later (including the hugely successful US version with Steve Carell), the Australians deliver their take on the material. The Aussie David Brent is Hannah Howard (Felicity Ward), and her Gareth is boot-faced productivity manager Lizzie (Edith Poor). Steen Raskopoulos plays the Tim of the piece, while Shari Sebbens is his Dawn - assuming, that is, that this series follows the same trajectory from that point of view.     

Ward and Raskopoulos are probably the most recognisable cast members from a British point of view, but The Office tends to be a show that makes stars rather than casts them, so such things aren't terribly important. Ward has a long stand-up career behind her and the kind of bullish comic presence and command you'd expect as a result, delivering such lines as 'It's a wake but I want people to feel a-wake' with aplomb. 

In terms of tone the wider show feels closer to the US version than the UK but it'll be in how it finds its own identity that the joy of it all will be found - and, in being the first international variant to shake things up by casting a woman as the lead, they've made a strong start. (Eight episodes) 

It doesn't take years of analysis to work out just why this comedy drama is so fulfilling. Jason Segel is perfect as the galumphing man-child psychotherapist Jimmy, who spent most of the first series dealing with the death of his wife by finally telling his patients what he really thought of them. With unexpectedly beneficial results for them all. 

This hugely welcome and expanded second series sees him continue on his unconventional healing path, rebuilding his relationship with his teenaged daughter as his behaviour continues to unsettle his colleagues - especially old-fashioned fellow therapist Dr Paul Rhoades (played with fantastic world-weary annoyance by Harrison Ford), who has problems of his own to deal with. It's lovely, bittersweet and wryly funny stuff, co-written by Ted Lasso's Brett Goldstein, who also makes a cameo appearance in this second run. There will be a third series. (12 episodes)

This nimble comedy mixes up the usual family sitcom format with a touch of the rapture. It follows the Lewis family, who are members of a strict, entirely fictional religious order that carries out regular apocalypse drills and considers coffee a banned substance.

Inbetweener Simon Bird stars as patriarch David, who covets a role as church elder, while his wife (Kate O'Flynn) sneaks off to watch TV (also banned) with their neighbour. Wisely, the focus isn't on the zealots, but on 17-year-old Rachel, an ordinary teenager who is 'on the brink of moral hazards' for wanting to go to university. (Two series)

Setting up a cast of characters that stretches across all of LA's emergency services has given this show a refreshingly broad canvas on which to draw, allowing it to deliver everything from intimate personal dramas to sprawling stories involving huge natural disasters. The main characters include troubled fireman Bobby (Six Feet Under's Peter Krause), tough-as-nails cop Athena (Oscar nominee Angela Bassett), and 9-1-1 dispatchers Abby (Connie Britton) and Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt), both of whom have considerable personal troubles to tackle. 

If that sounds par for the US drama course, one thing that really sets 9-1-1 apart is the extraordinary nature of its emergencies. They range from the quirkily creative, such as a flyaway bouncy castle, to jaw-dropping spectacles that wouldn't look out of place on the big screen - notably the earthquake that opens series two and takes up three whole episodes. The show's real piece de resistance in these terms, though, comes in the premiere to series five, in which a part of LA secedes from the city and zoo animals are found wandering the streets. It's practically the apocalypse but, barely an episode later, everyone seems to have forgotten about it. That's this show in a nutshell.

The big news in the latest, eighth series is the bee-nado - and yes that it was it sounds like, a huge swarm of 22 million bees. See the trailer above for more... (Eight series) 

For nearly a decade, Kirat Assi believed she had forged a deep connection with a man named Bobby Jandu over the internet. What started as a friendship from a shared connection in London's Sikh community had seemingly evolved into a romance - although, whenever Kirat and Bobby tried to meet in person, something would stop it from happening. Once, Kirat was told that Bobby had been shot six times and, when the relationship eventually reached its astounding conclusion, she learned it was all based on a huge lie. 

Her story was documented in the Sweet Bobby podcast in 2021 and this riveting documentary - from the producers of The Tinder Swindler - does the same for TV, taking us through the relationship step-by-step, using exclusive interviews with Kirat and screenshots from the turning points in this ill-fated online relationship. Watching her reflect on the experience is a lesson in how this sort of thing can happen to anyone, and also on the rabbit holes that any bad relationship, be it online or in-person, can send people down. (82 minutes) 

Twin sisters Tegan and Sarah Quin have been blazing a path as both a successful indie musical duo and spokespeople for the LGBTQ+ community for decades. One of the things that they're proudest of is the caring and open online community they've fostered on social media. 

Or at least it was until someone cropped up online pretending to be Tegan. Fake Tegan ('Fegan') went to huge lengths to pass as the real thing, interacting with fans, flirting and even making up behind-the-scenes stories about Tegan across various different social media accounts for about 16 years. 

This documentary charts the pair's attempts to stop Fegan, spinning a disturbing, occasionally scary and thoroughly gripping cautionary tale about the information we let out into the world and the trust that we place in the people we find online. (100 minutes)

'I'm trying to overturn the paradigms of history.' Journalist Graham Hancock certainly knows how to grab your attention, and starts as he means to go on in the first series of this show, which is driven by one big idea: prehistoric humans lived in a hugely advanced civilisation that we've all forgotten about. Hancock rails against the 'so-called experts' who insist those humans were just poor hunter-gatherers, and lists the site of Gunung Padang as his first piece of evidence. This 'mountain of enlightenment' in Indonesia is strewn with up to 50,000 stone blocks that may well have a jaw-dropping significance. 

For the second series, Hancock heads to the Americas to further explore the origins of civilisation, a quest he undertakes with assistance from thoughtful Hollywood star Keanu Reeves. (Two series)  

Reformed criminal Moke (Josh Brolin) is trying to put his outlaw ways behind him when his still-happily-crooked twin brother Jady (Game Of Thrones star Peter Dinklage) turns up to overturn his quiet life. Soon the pair are on the run with a set of priceless emeralds in their sights, ricocheting from catastrophe to catastrophe as they attempt to complete one last job. 

Based on a story by Tropic Thunder's Etan Cohen and directed with full-throated verve by Palm Springs director Max Barbakow, this is a riotously enjoyable caper with the feel of early Coen brothers films such as Raising Arizona about it. 

It's easy to see why it's drawn in a fantastic cast: alongside the always excellent Dinklage and Brolin, you'll also find Glenn Close, Marisa Tomei and Brendan Fraser, all stealing scenes with cheery abandon. (89 minutes)

Bernadine Evaristo was the first black woman to win the prestigious Booker prize for her 2019 novel Girl, Woman, Other, and this is the first of her highly readable, multi-layered books to make it to the screen. 

Lennie James is magnificent as Barrington Jedidiah Walker, Barry to his friends, the dapper gent from Hackney, by way of Antigua, whose inner monologues we hear as he approaches his 75th birthday, with a drink and a literary quote never far from his lips. 

His wife Carmel (Sharon D Clarke) thinks he cheats on her - and says so in no shortage of colourful language of her own - and he is in indeed unfaithful, though not in the way she thinks. Barry and his best friend Morris (Ariyon Bakare) have been soulmates in secret for many years, but this is more than a story of love in the closet. It paints a vivid and thoughtful picture of multigenerational family life, built by immigrants of Barry and Carmel's vintage. When this family are together sparks fly and the result is by turns chaotic, invigorating, bitter and joyful. (Eight episodes)

Trapped women, money and class are the still-entirely-relevant themes running through the centre of Charles Dickens's final completed novel, Our Mutual Friend, an immensely complex story on the page made much more digestible in this National Theatre production. Ian Rickson's 2024 staging is broken up into chapters and further enlivened by the moody music of PJ Harvey and Ben Power, the album of which - London Tide - gives the play its title.

London is certainly a character on that album and it looms large in the background of this production, too, a cold and indifferent home to the ebb and flow of its inhabitants' fortunes. The characters we mostly follow are two women, Lizzie Hexam in Limehouse - her fortunes enslaved to the river and her murky father - and Bella Wilfer in Holloway, a diamond in the rough promised to a husband who disappears. The Mutual Friend of the title is a lodger who becomes a key part of the mystery that unfolds across the story's almost three-hour running time, which is undeniably lengthy. Still, it's a great story to get lost in if you have the attention and time to hand, and Harvey's music gives the production a propulsive sense of direction, sweeping you along like the river itself if you let it. 

One more thing - if you're an EastEnders fan you'll recognise the man playing Lizzie's murky dad as Jake Wood, aka Max Branning. Wood said he was 'daunted' by the prospect of singing his solo, which is especially understandable considering he's not a trained singer. (165 minutes) 

Made in the last few months of his life, this two-part series is based on Michael Mosley's successful podcast of the same name (listen on BBC Sounds), and is brought to our screens as a tribute to his efforts to make us all healthier and happier. If you're unfamiliar, the concept is as simple as it sounds: adopt one small change in your life and reap the benefits. But what to do? And does science back it up? 

These are the questions that Michael always sought to answer, rather than just berating us for our bad habits and lazy lifestyles. In the first episode, he follows busy single mum Jayne as she starts taking cold showers every morning. As she's the sort of woman who has her electric blanket on year round, this is a giant leap. (Two episodes)

German crime drama, set on an island in the Baltic Sea close to Poland, follows former lawyer and convicted murderer Karin Lossow (Katrin Sass) as she works with police on complex cases. 

It's a strange beast, with a setting that screams Nordic Noir, and cases that delve into dark places. But it actually has more in common with shows like Shetland, set in isolated communities swirling with disproportionate levels of crime and intrigue. 

Central character Karin, though, is more fascinating than most. As a woman with her own dark past, she's well placed to get to grips with the investigations, ruffling plenty of feathers along the way. (Five series)

During the Second World War, the Nazis invaded and fortified the Channel Islands. This involved the construction of concentration camps on British soil, a shocking strand of history that doesn't often get discussed. This moving, two-part documentary explores that story in depth, using the testimony of hundreds of former slave workers given to British interrogators in 1945. 

'How many people died each day. Sometimes it was six, sometimes a dozen,' is part of one person's testimony and the descriptions get a lot worse than that. It's astonishing that their story has gone largely untold for so long, possibly partly because it doesn't neatly fit into the general narrative that Britain went uninvaded by the Nazis. 

Sky History's documentary is focused on the story of Alderney, codenamed Adolf Island by the Nazis, with historians such as Guy Walters and Clare Mulley reflecting on how the camps were organised, alongside interviews with descendants of the detainees. We're also shown physical evidence of the camps on the island - forensic archaeologist Caroline Sturdy Colls, who has made a documentary (Adolf Island) about them before, recalls how you can still see the gate posts for the Helgoland and Borkum sites. They serve as chilling reminders of history, if you know what they are. (Two episodes) 

Welsh noir continues to stake its claim in the crime TV landscape, with this the latest atmospheric thriller to hail from the Valleys after Hidden, The Light In The Hall (Y Golau) and Hinterland. It feels part of a spooky storytelling tradition of campfire folklore that's suited to the rugged and isolated Welsh countryside, where secrets can be hidden and bodies buried.

This Welsh-language drama opens on familiar ground, with a detective, DI Ffion Lloyd, returning to her hometown to join the investigation of a missing woman. She's got a romantic history with her partner DS Rick Sheldon and no one, including Rick's wife, can escape the feeling that there's unfinished business between them. That double act is played by Elen Rhys and Richard Harrington, both familiar faces from their roles in The Mallorca Files and Hinterland respectively.

When the missing woman's body is found, there are clear links to historic murders in the town and fears of a copycat killer begin to circulate. It's not long, though, before the investigation is turned upside down and the detective duo dig in for something far more complex and challenging.

If you like your murder mysteries steeped in atmosphere and ghosts of the past, with characters bristling with tension and human frailty, then this is for you. (Six episodes)