★★★★★
Apple TV+ comedy Mythic Quest takes its annual journey to the past with a stunning episode about the origins of game designers Poppy Li and Ian Grim. We meet the geniuses when they were petulant kids who’d rather dream in nonexistent worlds than pay attention to the one they’re in.
Mythic Quest fans are in for a treat this week. This is a superb episode of this consistently well-played comedy series.
★★★☆☆
Apple TV+ limited series Shantaram comes to a thunderous close this week. The series, based on the novel by Gregory David Roberts about the travails of Aussie escaped convict Lindsay Ford, sees its hero making one last-ditch escape attempt while casting about for his last remaining friends in Bombay.
The Shantaram finale is riddled with questions. Will Abdullah, Prabhu, Lisa, Modena and Khan get out alive? Can Nightingale finally get his man? Will Shah win the war for the streets? And will Apple TV+ try to stretch Shantaram into a second season? We get answers to most of them.
Apple TV+ said Thursday its hit show Mythic Quest, a workplace comedy about a gaming company, will hatch a spinoff series called Mere Mortals.
Calling the new show an “extension series,” Apple TV+ said it “will explore the lives of employees, players and fans who are impacted by the game.”
In a brief new trailer Apple TV+ dropped Thursday for an upcoming documentary, moist-eyed tennis legend Boris Becker more or less admits to the camera that his life might be as good as over. His sentencing took place just days later. He went to prison for hiding assets to avoid paying debts.
“It’s Wednesday afternoon,” Becker said in the interview. “Friday I will know the rest of my life.”
The interview footage, which you can watch at the link below, comes from an as-yet untitled, two-part film about Becker’s life made by two Oscar-winners — director Alex Gibney and producer John Battsek.
A new documentary series is coming to Apple TV+ January 13 — Super League: The War for Football. Its trailer, dropped Wednesday, makes it look like a spy thriller filled with betrayals is currently unfolding in the world of international soccer.
And it’s good timing on the streaming service’s part, promoting it during the world’s most-popular sport’s biggest event, the World Cup.
Apple TV+ earned Golden Globe nominations in five important categories, including Best Drama. The creepy, very popular series Severance earned two of the nominations, and the prison thriller Black Bird got the rest.
Winners will be named in early 2023.
★★★★☆
There’s a man down this week on Slow Horses, the Apple TV+ show about underdog British spies and their disheveled bureau chief. The horses say goodbye to one of their own, but they don’t get much time to grieve.
Peter Judd’s giving everyone grief again, the Russians are in town doing damage, Lamb’s off the radar conducting his own investigation, and River’s in deep cover … though not that deep.
The episode, entitled “Drinking Games,” is a rough and engaging chapter of the saga. Everyone plays their part beautifully, and the stakes continue to climb.
★★★☆☆
Our outlaw hero Lin is running out of road this week on Shantaram, and everyone wants him dead or simply out of the way. Karla is neck-deep in a desperate attempt to clear Lin’s name — and makes Bombay a war zone in the process.
Also in this week’s episode, entitled “Banquet of Consequences“: Lisa and Modena’s great escape turns into no such thing. Prabhu makes a promise he can’t keep. Wally Nightingale closes in on his prey. And Ravi decides he’d rather not change after all.
It’s a thrilling penultimate episode, as the Apple TV+ limited series finds all its bloody pieces falling into place.
★☆☆☆☆
This week on Echo 3, showrunner, writer and director Mark Boal — known for The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty — gets lost upriver trying to graft some semblance of a worldview onto his hollow, sadistic Apple TV+ jungle adventure.
The kidnapped Amber’s captivity is explored, as is her captors’ thin psychology and political motivation. She tries to escape and everyone else suffers for it. It’s a boring and grim edition of Boal’s G.I. Joe fantasy.
★★★☆☆
Bilingual Apple TV+ comedy Acapulco goes to the edge of misfortune this week before pulling back. Maximo should be happy with his new life with Isabelle, but can’t help but feel like he’s missing out on something. And Julia and Chad must think about their futures now that they know neither of them will be a part of the other’s.
Meanwhile, Memo misses Maximo, Hector’s confused, Chad is lost, and Diane needs Don Pablo back in a hurry. All told, “The Power of Love” is a very convenient episode of the lightweight series.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+ thriller The Mosquito Coast picks up its cliffhanger and heads into ever darker territory this week. Allie is caught between a rock and a harder place than usual. Dina takes her anger out on Margot, but Charlie would rather take it out on Richard.
Margot’s stuck between trying to win back her family’s approval and not caring enough to get it back. The Foxes may still be in hot water with the U.S. government after all, which means there’s a clock ticking faster than they imagined.
It all adds up to a white-knuckle episode of the drama about a family of terrorists on the lam in Central America.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+ comedy Mythic Quest rings in the holiday season with a very special Christmas episode this week. The Mythic Quest offices are full of misery as David makes everyone stay and work through Christmas Eve. His attempts to cheer them up come to naught. And when Poppy and Ian try to salvage things at their old company, they go too far.
Meanwhile, Poppy and Rachel must learn what Jo’s definition of friendship is, and Rachel has her first brush with success. All in all, “The 12 Hours of Christmas” stands tall as a stellar episode of Apple TV+’s funniest show.
★★★☆☆
Little America, the easygoing Apple TV+ series about the immigrant experience in America, returns this week for a second season of predictably uplifting storytelling.
This parade of hard-luck stories features happy endings that range from gentle to ecstatic. Just like last season, the show is largely successful — if frequently too well-behaved for its own good.
★★★☆☆
Puppy Place returns to Apple TV+ this week with a second batch of adorable, low-stress hijinks centered on a family that fosters cute pooches.
The Petersons and their four-legged charges once again set out to teach us to love dogs — and ourselves in the process. The puppies are cute and plentiful, the lessons come hard and fast, and no problem is so difficult that it might stress out a child.
The show remains a pretty good afternoon time-waster for kids under 10.
★★★★☆
Based on a true story about a slave’s quest for freedom during the Civil War, Apple TV+’s oddly positioned Oscar contender Emancipation pairs action with an unflinching look at slavery’s brutality.
It stars Will Smith, whose bizarre post-Slap apology tour makes for strange bedfellows with Emancipation’s stark subject matter and the film’s action-oriented director, Antoine Fuqua. But this cautiously made movie is probably the best possible film this team could have produced. And indeed, it’s quite a bit better than an Oscar-ready slavery drama made in today’s Hollywood has any right to be.
★★☆☆☆
New episodes of Carpool Karaoke: The Series just popped up on Apple TV+, with zero fanfare or build-up or warning, because, well, who’s going to stop them? You? I didn’t think so.
Still, the showrunners did the one thing possible to entice me to review this new batch: They snagged some interesting guest stars. And you know what? A few actually charming moments emerge, despite the cringe-inducing artifice and sheer laziness of Carpool Karaoke’s premise and production.
The docudrama Emancipation hits Apple TV+ tomorrow, and to make sure Will Smith 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.
Apple TV+ offered a first look at season 3 of its award-winning drama Truth Be Told Thursday, introducing a new cast member in the process.
Actress Gabrielle Union joins Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer on the NAACP Image Award-winning show. Season 3 kicks off on January 20.
The Critics Choice Association showered Apple TV+ Tuesday with 10 nominations for the upcoming 28th Annual Critics Choice Awards. They include Best Drama Series nods for workplace psycho-drama Severance and dark comedy-drama Bad Sisters, plus Best Foreign Language Series noms for Pachinko and Tehran.
Nominations honored six series in total. The other two nominations covered acting in prison suspense thriller Black Bird and family drama The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey. See more specifics below.
★★★★☆
Allie Fox finds himself in a tight corner this week on The Mosquito Coast, the absorbing Apple TV+ series about a family on the run from the U.S. government. His son Charlie’s been compromised, so Allie must do a local criminal kingpin a favor. And that puts him in a car with William Lee, the man who tried to kill him.
Also, daughter Dina learns something about her mom Margot that changes everything about their relationship. It’s a magnificently tense and very strong episode all around.
“In a world like this, you can have it all,” says actor Billy Crudup, from The Morning Show, at the top of a new Apple TV+ trailer. It’s called “Apple TV+ Winter 2022 & Beyond | Official Preview,” and it’s all about year-end fare on the streaming service and what you can look forward to in 2023.
It short YouTube video may not give you all, as the Crudup clip implies, but it shows a lot of quality entertainment on tap now and upcoming.
★★★☆☆
Apple TV+ comedy Acapulco heads as far into crowded crossroads as possible this week as people learn to be human again. The show about the hopeful staff of an exclusive Mexican resort finds Maximo faced with an important guest who will teach him there’s more to life than success.
Meanwhile, Nora misses Sara and has to stop fighting her heart. Diane has meddled with Chad for the last time. Memo tries to help Hector live for a day, and Julia needs to do some serious reconsidering. The episode, entitled “Money Changes Everything,” finds everyone in transition — and it’s better than we’ve gotten lately from this show.
★★★★☆
Everyone’s confidence is shaken on this week’s episode of Mythic Quest, the Apple TV+ office comedy about a popular computer game.
Poppy realizes she has no idea what fun is, and that revelation is unraveling her world. Ian feels left out of the development of the Mythic Quest movie, and David is his only way in. To top it off, Carol thinks she’s getting fired for mismanagement of company funds, energy, and time.
It’s a strong episode of the funniest show Apple TV+ has to offer.
★★☆☆☆
New Apple TV+ military thriller Echo 3 finds its heroes in desperate times this week, anxious and ready to take desperate measures. The kidnapped Amber has been put in a hellish South American prison camp, her brother Bambi is abandoned by his cohorts, her husband Prince is back in America recovering from multiple gunshot wounds — and nobody has a clue how to make this situation any better. But the writers sure know how to make it weirder.
The show, about what happens when an American with clandestine government ties stumbles into a private war, gets good mileage out of mechanics over message in this week’s episode, entitled “Upriver.” The bizarro sexual subtext of intervention gets quite the workout in this show.
★★★☆☆
This week on Shantaram, Lin is ready to flee except for one big thing: He wants revenge. The Apple TV+ limited series about a benevolent fugitive on the run from his past is coming to a bloody head as Lin tries to square accounts, Karla runs around town preparing the double-cross of a lifetime, the grim specter of death arrives in Bombay, and everyone else is caught in the middle.
Though this episode is well-played, it focuses on Shantaram’s least-interesting characters.