Let’s get one thing straight: Anatomy of a Scandal is a ridiculous show.

The first of many upcoming Netflix projects from Big Little Lies writer David E. Kelley, the series is a starry adaptation of Sarah Vaughan’s best-selling novel, and tells the story of a Westminster politician (Rupert Friend) accused of raping his aide (Naomi Scott). The man’s wife (Sienna Miller) is utterly convinced of his innocence, though her resolve is tested by a headstrong prosecutor (Michelle Dockery) determined to prove otherwise.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that synopsis reads like standard contemporary drama fare, and Kelley’s latest show – adapted for the screen with co-writer Melissa James Gibson (House of Cards) – hasn’t won over critics with any semblance of notable style or substance.

TechRadar’s own senior entertainment editor, Tom Goodwyn, described Anatomy of a Scandal as little more than “roughly six hours of Sienna Miller sighing,” which is one of the more forgiving assessments you’ll find on the internet if you go looking.

It’s a wonder, then, that the series has skyrocketed to the top of Netflix’s weekly popularity charts . Having scored more than 75 million hours viewed in the past seven days, Anatomy of a Scandal has become the first Netflix show to knock Bridgerton season 2 from its perch, and looks poised to remain in the top spot for several weeks to come.

Except, its success isn’t really a wonder at all. In recent years, Netflix has perfected the art of trickster television – series that attract audiences, like moths to a flame, with big names and moody marketing, only to leave them unsatisfied but equally unwilling to bail on their time investment halfway through watching.

GQ’s Ben Allen recently raised the same point in his description of the 'Prestige Imposter', a type of show that, in his words, “has all the trappings of your glossy HBO faves – huge stars, silly budgets, big ticket writers – but veers closer to EastEnders in depth and quality, a Trojan Horse filled with human excrement.”

Okay, maybe Anatomy of a Scandal isn't quite that bad, but it certainly doesn't warrant more viewers than every other TV show streaming right now.

Of the myriad streaming services at customers’ disposal in 2022, Netflix is the biggest offender when it comes to peddling below-par series in such large quantities. Make no mistake, the platform still has the capacity to produce awards-worthy television – Stranger Things and Sex Education rank among the best in recent memory – but its frequently lazy output has begun to grate on subscribers toying with the notion that their money might be better spent elsewhere.

Netflix bosses know this. In response to the news that the streamer has hemorrhaged 200,000 paying customers since the beginning of 2022, CEO Reed Hastings told investors that the company plans to “re-accelerate viewing and revenue growth by continuing to improve all aspects of Netflix – in particular, the quality of [its] programming.”

Like Apple TV Plus – whose recent projects CODA and Severance have proven the value in investing in truly unique original programming – Netflix must now trust in the willingness of its viewers to embrace the unfamiliar, and also give those original series that do break the mold time to breath before condemning them to the scrap heap .

But it doesn’t help the cause when shows like Anatomy of a Scandal defy their quality to become – in the eyes of Netflix’s statisticians – successful productions. When these safe, shallow series rake in 75 million viewing hours in a single week, their success risks justifying the streamer’s decision to cancel other genuinely interesting projects (like those previously in development at its animation department) that would immeasurably improve the quality of the service as a whole.

There is, therefore, an awkward contradiction at play that raises several, difficult to answer questions. If these so-called 'Prestige Imposters' are consistently proving popular, should Netflix continue commissioning them in a bid to regain subscriber momentum? Do Netflix customers – who have so openly criticized the streamer and its recent content – really care about the quality of the shows they’re watching? Or are the likes of Anatomy of a Scandal only ranking as the most popular on Netflix because the options are so limited?

To be clear: Netflix subscribers are not at fault here. Logic simply suggests that the company will look to replicate its big wins by doing just that – producing homogeneous series that reap big viewership figures at the expense of critical disdain. Perhaps, though, acclaim is overrated – if audiences are genuinely enjoying Anatomy of a Scandal and not simply sticking it out until the end, then more power to Netflix.

Still, for our money, the streamer must focus on quality over quantity moving forward if it hopes to fend off the increasingly fierce competition from rival platforms like Disney Plus and HBO Max . The company’s imminent crackdown on password sharing and likely introduction of a cheaper, ad-supported subscription tier will go some way to mitigating its losses, but as Netflix well knows: content is, and always will be, king.

Roku is bringing serious personalization to your Roku TV

The next big Roku TV update is officially coming soon, with the popular streaming brand bringing tons of new features - and options for personalization - via Roku OS 11. And at a glance, the outlined additions contain some exciting stuff for Roku TV streaming stick owners.

Roku OS 11 is launching on all supported Roku TV devices "over the coming weeks," according to a Roku press release. The update brings substantial additions to audio and voice settings, an expansion to Roku's content discovery features, as well as an overhaul of the Roku mobile app.

"With Roku OS 11, we’re offering a platform with new personalized updates across search, audio, content discovery along with a new feature that allows our customers to display and even share photo albums through Roku devices," said Senior Vice President Product & Experience at Roku, Gidon Katz in a release on the update.

Roku TV update: what's coming in Roku OS 11?

Your Roku device's audio features are to receive some big additions. If you own a Roku Streambar or speaker, you'll be able to enjoy new sound profiles that we're honestly surprised weren't available before. You can choose various sound modes including Dialogue, Movie, Music, and Night. All modes are accessible via your Roku remote or through the mobile app.

Plus, with the improved A/V sync feature available on the app, it'll be easier to sync audio with whatever's on-screen. That's a huge win for Roku Streambar owners who will hopefully no longer have issues with unsynced audio.

The real star of the Roku TV update package, for us, has to be the expanded content discovery features. If you own a Roku TV model or one of the best Roku streaming sticks , you'll have access to a brand new 'What to Watch' menu as a part of the Roku OS 11 update.

'What to Watch' sounds ideal if you're looking for a new favorite movie, or a new TV show to binge. It'll suggest content from a wide variety of the best streaming services . This means that its suggestions won't be tied to just a select few streamers, and should help you find new or trending content without trawling through each app.

Roku's Live TV Zone is also seeing an expansion, and will offer suggestions based on your recent watches among the Roku Channel's live content . That could be especially handy if you like keeping up with the news or tuning in to watch your favorite sports as they happen.

Rounding out the Roku OS 11 update is an expansion of the Roku Photo Streams feature, which will now let you set photo albums - and images you've uploaded to your Roku device - as screensavers. This will effectively let you display your favorite photos onto your TV, not dissimilar to how LG's TV line-up presents images of paintings and such while the TV is idle.

Sniper Elite 5's most exciting feature comes from Dark Souls

Sniper Elite 5 isn’t a radical reboot:  the long-running World War 2 shooter again challenges you to snipe, shoot, and stealth your way to victory over the Nazis in a succession of open-world missions, set on large maps studded with hidden items and secondary objectives. As in Sniper Elite 4, it supports two-player drop-in/drop-out co-op play, along with 16-player adversarial multiplayer, and a three-person co-op multiplayer mode called Survival. Although, developer Rebellion is adding significant new features to its tried-and-tested blueprint.

The most prominent new feature in Sniper Elite 5 will be familiar to any Dark Souls fans: if you’re playing the new Invasion mode, you can drop into another player’s campaign as an enemy sniper and indulge in some PvP action. Rebellion is using the same system for co-op play, too, so you can now request aid from another player if you find yourself stuck in the campaign – you can still play through an entire campaign with a co-op companion if you want.

Another change that shows the drift of the series in recent years is that you now shift into first-person whenever aiming down a gun’s sights. Before, the only weapon that had that perspective was your trusty sniper rifle, with the rest of your armory sticking to third-person.

There are many more ways to customize your weapons in Sniper Elite 5. Whenever you find workbenches in missions, you can spend resources to change most elements of your guns, such as magazines, sights, barrels, stocks, silencers, and ammo types. New traversal methods allow you to travel around missions in new ways, too. You can flank and surprise enemies in new ways thanks to the zip wires dotted around levels and climbable vines. Plus, Rebellion has somehow worked out how to make Sniper Elite’s trademark Killcam even more forensically lurid.

A return to France

You’re returning to the front as Karl Fairburne, the US Ranger uber-sniper from the previous games. Sniper Elite 5’s action takes place in France in 1944 – spanning events both before and after D-Day, Rebellion told us. The story opens with Fairburne on a mission to weaken the Atlantikwall fortifications along the Brittany coast in preparation for D-Day.

Fairburne hooks up with the French Resistance, but the plot swiftly mushrooms when he encounters Sniper Elite 5’s main antagonist, Obergruppenfuhrer Abelard Moller, and digs up intel about secret project Operation Kraken.

We don’t know a lot at this stage – how many missions comprise the single-player campaign, for example, or how long it might take you to play through them all. But Rebellion has redoubled its efforts to achieve authenticity, employing methods like photogrammetry to reconstruct real-world locations and working with partners like the Imperial War Museum to get things like weaponry, vehicles, and uniforms spot-on.

Creeping in the undergrowth

Our mission opens in a rural clearing in a wood just outside a sun-dappled French village, with a cutscene in which Fairburne, accompanied by another agent from the Special Operations Executive, hooks up with a couple of Resistance fighters. The head Resistance operative reports that SS officer Abelard Moller is responsible for a recent spate of local outrages and has seized Chateau de Berengar as his HQ. Moller and his entourage are elsewhere, but there are rumors that he’s in charge of a secret operation, so Fairburne agrees to infiltrate Moller’s office in the chateau and gather relevant intel.

After scrutinizing the map – also marked with an optional objective involving assassinating a high-ranking Nazi officer – we work towards the chateau through the countryside. The environment is stunningly modeled, with authentic-looking vegetation that proves to be handy cover when hiding from German patrols. We can sneak through the long grass to slip past the enemy unawares. Handily, if Fairburne is crouched and we click the left stick on our controller to get him to run, he will drop back into a crouch afterward. It’s a small detail, but a welcome one.

If you enjoy Sniper Elite 4, you will find Sniper Elite 5reassuringly familiar. It has a proper open-world, play-how-you-want feel, reinforced by noticeably larger levels than previous games, at least if the one we’re playing is representative. Typically, the AI (even on the medium difficulty setting) was rigorous – German vehicles on a  nearby road stop and fire at us if we enter their sightlines, for example, which reinforces the need for a stealthy approach.

Using Fairburne’s binoculars to scout ahead, we encounter a pocket of enemy guards and our first chance to see Sniper Elite 5’s Killcam in action. If you pull off a single-shot kill with a sniper rifle, you’re rewarded with a graphic visualization of your bullet’s damage, showing which bodily organs your shot penetrates and which bones it bounces off. Under fire, we snipe another enemy, then run to loot the bodies – another familiar Sniper Elite mechanic and one crucial for replenishing ammo, grenades, and medical kits.

Reinforcements arrive, alerted by the shots, allowing us to test out Sniper Elite 5’s stealth takedowns and close-quarters combat using the submachine gun. Looking down the guns’ iron sights prove particularly handy with the silenced handgun, adding precision when seeking single-bullet headshot kills with a low-caliber weapon.

Puzzles and secrets

We sneak into the chateau by shimmying up a vine and climbing through an open window. Inside, our gaming headset earns its keep, as we can pinpoint the sound of incoming footsteps allowing for several stealth takedowns. The door to Moller’s office is locked, but Rebellion tells us there are numerous ways inside: if we had killed one of Moller’s lieutenants, then we would have found a key on the body; or we could pick the lock (though risk discovery); or, as we do, gain access by heading up a floor to the dusty attic, then dropping down through a hole in the floor. Moller’s office yields valuable intel, but not what we sought, and Fairburne realizes there must be a hidden room. You need to work out how to open the secret door by fiddling with different objects in the office, and behind the fake wall, we find a file on Operation Kraken.

Somewhere an alarm is triggered, and we have to escape the chateau as waves of enemies assault the countryside manor. Even when we reach our exfiltration point, we have to make sure we aren’t being followed (read: kill everyone in the vicinity). It’s a satisfying end to the mission.

Growing your skills

Everything you do in Sniper Elite 5 – dramatic sniper kills, takedowns, discovering secrets and intel – earns you skill points. We leveled up during our demo mission, allowing us to explore the RPG-style skills tree. It’s split into three components: Combat, Equipment, and Body. We spend our first point on a Combat skill called Back In The Fight, which lets you use a medkit to heal when downed, granting a second lease of life. Other Combat skills on offer include the ability to throw back grenades, various levels of enemy tagging, and quick laying of traps.

Our first playthrough of the Occupied Residence mission took over an hour, we approached it at a leisurely pace, taking as many opportunities to explore as we could. On our second run, we took a different approach, literally, entering the chateau through secret escape tunnels and restricting ourselves to stealth kills as much as possible.

Our new route into the manor leads us to new secrets and collectibles, suggesting there will be lots to reward replaying all of Sniper Elite 5’s missions. We can’t speculate how long it will take to play through the campaign without knowing how many levels are in the final game. Still, hopefully, it will be a meaty experience for those who want to find everything hidden within its missions.

Zooming in on the details

Rebellion has improved Sniper Elite in many subtle ways. Graphically, it’s a cut above its predecessors, too, with a lot of time and care paid to period details, making the fictional storyline believable. Throughout the missions we play, we overhear conversations between enemies, for example, which provide helpful information and a wealth of lore that grounds you in the history of the time.

WW2 Europe has always exerted a fascination for a lot of gamers, and Sniper Elite 5’s depiction of the momentous events of France in 1944 is uncannily plausible. Factor in classic Sniper Elite third and first-person action gameplay, and you have the recipe for a game that looks set to delight the series’ fans. It’s due for a May 26 release on PC, PS4 , PS5 , Xbox One, and Xbox Series X |S, and we’ll bring you more details as they emerge in the lead-up.