LOVE YOU TO DEATH: A YEAR OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, BBC2, 9pm

AMID TV’s jingling bells and festive specials is this powerful and distressing documentary.

On average, seven women are killed each month by their husband, boyfriend or ex-partner. That’s simply a statistic so it’s easy for the eye to skim over it without pausing to consider the individual lives, and deaths, behind the number. This programme tries to make us stop and genuinely think what it means to have so many women, in a modern, civilised country, being murdered regularly by those who claim to love them.

There is no intrusive narration in this documentary. Instead, the programme is handed over to the daughters, mothers, sisters and friends of those who have been killed and they speak to the camera, in painful, blunt detail as they tell us the personal stories, not the statistics.

Eighty six women were killed in 2013, and the documentary can’t tell every story so we only hear some of them but the other women are not ignored: in between each individual story a voice reads out the names and ages of the dead in a terrible, solemn roll call.

THE APPRENTICE, BBC1, 9pm

THIS week the five remaining candidates are interviewed about their business plans by some of Lord Sugar’s fiercest advisers. Normally this is the best episode of the whole series because the candidates can’t hide in a team activity but are forced to sit down alone and be questioned. Away from the clamour and drama of the tasks, they feel the pressure and they stumble, stutter and sweat.

I’m still cringing from last year’s episode where Claude Littner utterly destroyed Solomon Akhtar by asking why his business plan was mainly just pictures of sailboats. As poor Solomon tried to flee the room he went towards the wrong door and found himself in a cupboard. Oh, I was dying inside as I watched and I hoped, this year, for similarly gruesome displays.

Unfortunately, there is little horror this year and I blame Claude. He was always the most brutal interviewer but he seemed softer this year. Perhaps it’s because he’s now involved in the entire process and so has, however unwillingly, got to know the candidates. Whatever the reason, there are no awful scenes tonight, although one candidate clearly suffers more than the rest.

 PEEP SHOW, C4, 10pm

I CAN'T quite believe that this is the last episode of Peep Show. Which sitcom can we turn to when we’re feeling like ruined, depressed misfits against whom all the world is arranged? We’ll just have to watch it all again and jot down notes on how to cope with life, because it has taught us several lessons such as: keep your boiler at the right temperature; never go along with any plan devised by Super Hans; don’t opt for a career in credit control and never be ashamed to admit you prefer Radio 4 to a night of clubbing and getting high.

In this last episode, Jeremy is forced to admit that he’s getting older. His boyfriend wants to party, take drugs and stay awake for three days and Jeremy is trying to keep up with him but really just wants to close the bedroom door and sleep for a fortnight. He’s afraid to admit he’s getting older and slowing down and so pretends his upcoming 40th birthday is really just his 39th. And as Mark keeps trying to win

April’s heart, Super Hans proposes a plan and Mark is desperate enough to go along with it.