TV

The Guardian Weekly team reveals our small-screen picks of the year, from the underground vaults of post-apocalyptic Fallout to the mile-high escapism of Rivals

Wronged citizens, big business, tin-earned politicians: all the components you need for a captivating drama, and Mr Bates vs The Post Office (ITVX/Prime Video) certainly was. Gwyneth Hughes's excoriating dramatisation of a miscarriage of British justice - where a faulty IT system was given greater credence than hardworking staff-propelled the issue back into the public sphere, reigniting outrage, kickstarting a public inquiry and resulting in a landmark bill to exonerate hundreds of post office operators in what became known as the Horizon IT scandal. Toby Jones stars as Alan Bates, the post office operator who led an ultimately successful class action to the high court to quash charges of fraud, theft and false accounting against many of his colleagues. Sadly, there is much material ripe for such dramatisation.

Based on a role-playing video game which, full disclosure, I haven't played - Fallout, Prime Video's adaptation of postapocalyptic survival, struck a balance between action, mirth and questions of humanity and morality. When Lucy, a resident of one of a series of underground fallout shelters, or vaults, ventures up to the Earth's surface, she has to quickly adapt to survive. As Lucy blends her black-and-white morality to the greyness needed to navigate aboveground challenges, some unlikely alliances are formed. Her below-ground superiority complex falls away while some digging reveals uncomfortable truths about her vault-dwelling companions. A quite literal deep-state conspiracy. Neil Willis, production editor