★★★☆☆
In this week’s edition of Apple TV+ limited series Shantaram, Lin recovers from cholera with Karla’s help, and she’s discovering she isn’t the moral person she’d been hoping she was deep down. Shah and Khan go to war over water, Prabhu gets a win, Ravi makes a chilling discovery, and Lisa and Modena have an ultimatum or two in front of them.
As the show enters its back half, Shantaram’s becoming a very agreeable place to hang — even with all the bad people hanging around.
★★★★★
It’s girlboss brunch time on this week’s Mythic Quest, the Apple TV+ show about the overworked, undervalued and confused team of executives and developers who keep a gaming company afloat. Jo, Poppy and Rachel go to brunch together and make some discoveries about themselves and each other.
Meanwhile, Ian and Dana search for inspiration in the desert. David gets excited because a Mythic Quest movie might be in the works, even though everyone and everything is screaming at him that it’s a bad idea. Also, Brad might not be the changed man he appears to be.
★☆☆☆☆
Apple TV+ comedy Acapulco, about an old millionaire reminiscing about his early life as a wage slave at a popular resort in the ’80s, takes two trips down memory lane this week. Diane relives her glory days before Las Colinas, while Maximo remembers a moral dilemma that cost him and rewarded him in equal measure.
There’s a party at the resort, and all the ghosts of Diane’s past are invited in an unfortunately middling episode.
★★★★☆
Interrupting Chicken, the new Apple TV+ children’s show about a family of chickens who get lost in the power of books and storytelling, is a winning combination of beautiful animation, good voice acting, and charming and warm-hearted stories.
Based on the Caldecott Medal-winning book series of the same name, written and illustrated by David Ezra Stein, it’s another solid entry in Apple’s growing catalog of kids shows.
☆☆☆☆☆
Spirited, the Apple TV+ musical comedy remake of A Christmas Carol, is a depressingly literal, overly sarcastic and nightmarishly unfunny look at the lives of the people who work from beyond the grave to make Christmas cheer.
In the film, which hits the streaming service today, Will Ferrell plays a spirit who’s lost his mojo when he meets a man who’s more persuasive than he is. The laughs never start and the songs never stop in this gaudy waste of money and talent.
Apple TV+ and the top pro soccer league in the United States, Major League Soccer (MLS), said Wednesday the MLS Season Pass subscription service showing all matches with no blackouts launches February 1, 2023.
The launch, which includes features on multiple Apple services, kicks off a 10-year partnership between Apple and MLS.
Emancipation starring Will Smith portrays one man’s fight through unthinkable terrors to reunite with his family. It is based on the real-life story of Peter, whose saga of escaping slavery made headlines around the world in 1863.
A trailer for the upcoming Apple TV+ film premiered Wednesday revealing top-quality acting and cinematography.
An amusing audio teaser from Apple News on Monday introduced the limited podcast After the Whistle, in which Coach Beard from the Apple TV+ hit Ted Lasso — aka actor Brendan Hunt — and veteran English sportscaster Rebecca Lowe will explain everything about the world’s biggest sporting event, the World Cup, as it happens.
As you may know, the World Cup is a massive football tournament (to use the world’s sensible term for soccer). It kicks off Sunday in Qatar and will be broadcast globally. Apple News boots up the podcast on Thursday in anticipation of it.
★★★☆☆
There’s a cholera outbreak this week on Apple TV+ epic Shantaram, and impostor doctor Lin Ford finds himself in the thick of it. If he saves lives, he’ll become a hero. If he doesn’t, he’ll be a pariah.
Meanwhile, Lisa and Karla make business arrangements that threaten relationships with the people closest to them. Abdullah gives Maurizio an ultimatum, Khan gives the competition a scare, and Lin must make some very hard choices.
It’s another gripping episode of the Bombay-set thriller.
★★★☆☆
Candy-colored Apple TV+ comedy Acapulco takes stock of its situation on an eventful trip to the city this week. Sara is sleeping at Las Colinas illegally, and her mother Nora still wants to put the fear of god into her. Meanwhile, Memo’s feeling down and Maximo’s solution just makes things worse. Also, Chad wants to dance, and Don Pablo wants out.
Acapulco goes through a few ups and downs this week as the creative team takes a few risks, and the writers fall back on bad habits.
★★★★☆
This week on Apple TV+ thriller The Mosquito Coast, the Fox family’s boat suffers some serious damage but the show itself refuses to run aground.
Allie suffers a bad bug bite that takes him out of the equation when they need him most. Plus, Charlie finally comes clean about his guilt, and Dina starts being honest with herself. It’s an excellent episode with all the tension and beauty you could hope for.
★★★★☆
Mythic Quest — the Apple TV+ sitcom about the world’s most popular role-playing video game company and the kooks who staff it — returns today for a third season of behind-the-scenes insanity and power plays.
Poppy and Ian are nearly at each other’s throats working together at their new company. And David and Carol are panicking now that they have no idea what to do with Mythic Quest.
Apple TV+ said Wednesday its murderously fun dark comedy Bad Sisters, which ended its first season in October, will return for a second go-round.
That’s good news for fans of the show — myself included — but you have to wonder what will happen with the story. The Belgian show it’s based on, Clan, had only one season. And at the end of season one of Bad Sisters, the Garvey women get what they want regarding their jerk of a brother-in-law.
But perhaps his demise won’t turn out to be the perfect crime it looked like. And that’s no spoiler. You know he’s dead from episode 1.
To celebrate the launch of Causeway on Apple TV+, the streaming service is now offering five other movies starring Jennifer Lawrence. That includes all four Hunger Games films.
It’s part of a recent move by Apple to temporarily add already-released movies to its catalogue.
★★★☆☆
Apple TV+ ’80s comedy Acapulco has romance on the brain this week. Maximo and Julia have to talk, Hector and Don Pablo are feeling unloved by Diane, Memo’s love is over and blooming at once, and Sara is heartbroken but she ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
A strong episode of the tacky comedy reveals some important things about the limits of a show like this, how formula and reality don’t always match, and how much you can get away with in a comedy. It’s a fascinating, frustrating study in the state of the sitcom.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+ show Mosquito Coast returns Friday with more under-the-radar thrills. Based on the book by Paul Theroux and starring his nephew Justin as wanted criminal and escape artist Allie Fox, Mosquito Coast is about the many little compromises we make on our way to what we hope is a better life.
In the season two opener, Allie and his wife Margot reminisce about their past lives for their children Dina and Charlie, finally explaining why they’ve been living their lives on the run this whole time. And one telling lie means they’re still not really ready to be honest. It’s a solid return to form after last year’s stellar season finale.
★★★☆☆
This week on Apple TV+ drama/thriller Shantaram, it’s all about escapes. Lin knows a story about his medical work will bring his flight from justice to the attention of the authorities, so it’s time to leave Bombay.
Meanwhile, Prabhu and Parvati want to marry in secret before her parents can prevent it. Lisa discovers Modena is still up to his old tricks, and now she wants out of their new arrangement. And just when Lin is in line for a fake passport, a whole new situation arises that threatens his freedom. It’s a suitably tense time.
★★★☆☆
In new Apple TV+ documentary Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, we take a trip into the center of the pop star’s world to discover her journey has been nothing but hardship surrounded by impossible highs, which makes coping with her fame something like a near-impossibility.
Narrated by Gomez herself and directed by Alek Keshishian (Madonna: Truth or Dare), this revealing, well-intentioned and often quite beautiful documentary gets us inside of her turmoil and the whirlwind of both her fame and her illness. It’s important for people to know that being America’s sweetheart is no picnic, and that the machinery of fame is parasitic and unyielding. Hopefully, someone, somewhere will pull the brakes on throwing kids into the show business maelstrom.
★★★☆☆
Depressive drama Causeway, which stars Jennifer Lawrence as a recovering Afghanistan war veteran trapped in her hometown, marks the latest collaboration between indie film company A24 and Apple TV+.
Lawrence, dipping her toe back into being a movie star following last year’s Don’t Look Up, returns to her roots in the film, which premieres Friday on Apple TV+. Causeway hits a lot of expected Sundance/indie movie beats but finds grace notes in quieter, less empathic scenes.
Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me premiers Friday on Apple TV+, and to be sure her fans can watch it, Apple is offering a free two-month trial of its streaming video service.
That’s much longer than the usual 7-day trial.
Fans of the hit Apple TV+ series Severance can rejoice that production on season 2 started this week. More of what Stephen Colbert called a “dystopian workplace sci-fi mystery black comedy psychological thriller” is on the way.
Upcoming episodes of the Emmy-winning – and very creepy – series will feature the original stars as well as eight new ones.
The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences named the nominees for the new Children’s & Family Emmys on Monday, and Apple TV+ earned 17 nominations. That includes shows in two of the top categories.
While Apple is in there swinging, the real competition will be between Disney and Netflix, both of which earned dozens of nominations.
If you were a kid, wouldn’t you like to use a remote control to just “turn off” your parents for a while? But what if you couldn’t figure out how to turn them back on?
That’s one of many scenarios that flash past in the trailer for Circuit Breakers Apple TV+ released Monday. It’s a science-fiction series about middle-schoolers set in the near future. It premieres November 11.
★★★☆☆
On this week’s installment of the Apple TV+ limited series Shantaram, Lin must take stock of where he is, what good fortune means and whether it’s his to truly celebrate.
The people of Bombay are getting used to the impostor doctor, but at every turn, Lin faces potential threats to his freedom and his place among his newfound community of outsiders. It’s a typically engaging outing of the Charlie Hunnam drama.
★★★★☆
New Apple TV+ documentary Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues takes a lively and appropriately soulful look at the man who invented popular music in America as we know it today.
The film, which premieres today on Apple’s streaming service, brims with expert testimony from witnesses, fans, friends, and family of the incredibly influential jazz musician. It’s bolstered by a cornucopia of rare archival footage and photographs that root Armstrong firmly in history.
Louis Armstrong is too big a subject to think you could ever fully capture him, so director Sacha Jenkins treats this project as just one man’s look at another man. It’s remarkably successful.