Whether you’re looking for sweet, escapist relief or drama that reflects and interprets our turbulent times, there’s never been greater small-screen choice than there is right now. But navigating the sheer scope of what’s on offer can be daunting. This year’s TV slate offers an impressively rich mixture of the serious and the frivolous, the sombre and the sensational. And, from returning and beloved favourites to challenging and unsettling modern provocations, there’s something for everyone.

The inexorable drift of cinematic auteurs towards long-form television continues with this anthology series from those masters of linguistic quirk and tangential plotting, Messrs Joel and Ethan Coen. Mr Tim Blake Nelson stars as the titular Scruggs in six tales from the American West. Look out for appearances from Mr James Franco and Ms Zoe Kazan, too.

It’s slightly queasy to realise that the latest updates on the real-life miscarriage of justice surrounding Mr Steven Avery and Mr Brendan Dassey are now awaited as eagerly as the next instalment of any fiction. But eagerly awaited they are. We look forward to renewing our acquaintance with Mr Avery’s charismatic legal team of Mr Jerry Buting and Mr Dean Strang, who probably deserve a Better Call Saul-style spin-off series of their own.

This new series from the production company that brought us true-crime sleeper smash The People V OJ Simpson explores the events surrounding the 1997 murder of fashion icon Mr Gianni Versace. It feels a little trashier than its predecessor, but promises to explore both the killing itself and the subsequent manhunt.

The source material of Ms Margaret Atwood’s original novel was used up in last year’s mesmerising first series. Expect a wider perspective on Gilead’s turbo-patriarchal misery as the horrors of the dreaded Colonies are explored. Advance publicity has suggested that this second season is going to be “much darker” than season one. In which case, God help us all.

The times have come around to Alan Partridge. In this new series, his first on his despised BBC for more than a decade, he apparently repurposes himself as “the voice of hard Brexit”. Partridge is looking increasingly like a job for life for Mr Steve Coogan, while new writers Messrs Rob and Neil Gibbons have given Norfolk’s finest a new lease of life. Is this the most three-dimensional character in comedy history?

More high jinks from the world’s most hazardous tourist destination. Can humanity fight back as the android hosts run riot? Westworld’s first season asked fascinating and pertinent questions about free will and mankind’s relationship with technology, and boasted extraordinary performances in which machines were invested with a troubling brand of near-human nuance.

Mr Vikram Seth’s 1993 novel clocks in at a less-than-economical 1,349 pages. Can a TV adaptation ever hope to do justice to its scope? This version of Mr Seth’s sprawling exploration of post-colonial India will be the first BBC drama to feature an entirely non-white cast. But its themes are deeply traditional, and fans of family period sagas will find much to enjoy here.

This six-part drama from Mr Bryan Elsley, the co-creator of Skins, is a self-consciously modern affair that uses a mixture of live action and computer-generated virtual-world sequences to tell the story of two girls, lonely Leila and party-loving Tess. The pair become real-world friends. Can their relationship survive when their virtual adventures threaten to invade offline life?

It’s surprising that Mr HG Wells’ endlessly relevant novel has never been adapted for the small screen before. But the themes of alien invasion and entrenched group identity feel particularly piquant in the light of Britain’s current political situation, so this series could well catch the zeitgeist.

In an era overflowing with sex scandals, Mr Russell T Davies’s decision to tackle the sad story of Mr Jeremy Thorpe could prove inspired. Mr Thorpe was a high-flying Liberal MP who, in the mid-1970s, found himself entangled in a murder conspiracy stemming from his attempts to conceal his homosexuality. Mr Davies’s mixture of wry humour and emotional candour should be a perfect fit for the material.