★★☆☆☆
This week’s See finds everyone taking stock of their miserable situations before the inevitable next course of action. The Apple TV+ dystopian sci-fi epic about a world where most people lost their sight generations ago is getting ready for war.
Sibeth is missing, Baba is back, Maghra finally sees the light, Tamacti Jun is at his wit’s end, and Kofun steps up.
★☆☆☆☆
Central Park returns to Apple TV+ on Friday with more singing, dancing, rapid-fire jokes that aren’t funny and plots that go nowhere.
The third season of the cartoon from Bob’s Burgers creator Loren Bouchard, star Josh Gad and writer Nora Smith does the usual spinning in extravagant circles without gaining any momentum. And unfortunately, the songs don’t forward the plot, such as it is.
☆☆☆☆☆
Apple TV+’s Gutsy, a deeply cynical PR stunt from former first lady Hillary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea, attempts to preach to a very specific choir while celebrating everything human about someone who at this point couldn’t be less relatable to the American public.
Gutsy is an expensive, self-aggrandizing road trip shared by women who were never really like the rest of us and now never will be. The series, which premiered Friday on Apple TV+, is replete with jaw-dropping guest stars, rehearsed banter, and about as much “fun” as an orientation day skit at college.
Basically, Gutsy is the unappealing answer to the question, “What do you give the woman who has everything?”
The dark comedy Bad Sisters made the list of top 10 most streamed shows three weeks in a row now. And it’s pulling in plenty of positive reviews.
The show streams weekly on Apple TV+.
★★★★☆
Five Days at Memorial looks back at the events of horrifying devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in this week’s episode.
The Apple TV+ show about the terrible deaths of patients left behind after a hospital’s evacuation finally turns its sights on the investigation and trial that followed. As investigators try to work through the impossible situation that lead to the deaths of 45 patients, the show slackens its lead a little now that the “worst” is over. But of course, the ordeal of Memorial is nowhere near finished.
★★☆☆☆
Baba Voss returns to civilization after a short-lived exile on this week’s episode of See, the Apple TV+ show about a world in the future where everyone on earth has gone blind.
Our hero Baba Voss (played by Jason Momoa) is trying to raise the alarm about explosives — but no one wants to hear it. Plus, his adopted sun Kofun is still shaky on the needs of fatherhood, and Baba’s wife Queen Maghra is between a rock and a hard place. Maghra’s sister, deposed queen Sibeth Kane, may have run out of ways to stay alive.
It’s a silly episode from start to finish — even if you manage to see what’s happening amid all the murky on-screen action.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+ hit dark comedy Bad Sisters takes us through Becka’s motive for a murder this week. In the devilishly good series about the murder of a selfish bastard, we flash back to witness the fourth sister’s experience with bad brother-in-law John Paul — and the dispiriting effect it had on all of Garveys.
Meanwhile, in the present, Becka deals with her complicated romantic entanglement with the man trying to bring her and her sisters down. Elsewhere, Eva gets serious with Gabriel, Ursula runs out of options, and JP finds a new target in a truly stellar episode.
★★☆☆☆
Dreary Apple TV+ series Surface — about a woman who can’t remember her life, and the trouble her condition causes everyone around her — wraps up with a new set of twists and turns and an unrelated mystery.
Despite trying to make it seem like Sophie has finally done something for herself, the particulars and the ambition don’t bear this out. Surface ends by starting from the beginning, having apparently decided its central mystery isn’t interesting enough.
I could have told them that after episode one.
★★☆☆☆
At long last, the third season of Apple TV+ family comedy Trying comes to a conclusion this week. Nikki and Jason must fight for their adopted kids in court — but first they’ve got a wedding to plan. Indeed, the whole gang comes together to help them plan their last-minute nuptials.
The fate of their happiness hangs in the balance. And, against all odds, the Trying cast and writers overcome their worst tendencies to put together the only good episode of this show that has yet aired. Mind you, I still don’t want any more of this. Trying will come back for its fourth season, which puts a knot in my stomach but at least season three went out with a bang.
T-Mobile is including Apple TV+ for free in its Magenta Max unlimited wireless data plan. Subscribers will have access to Apple’s streaming service along with the carrier’s 5G network without data caps.
Magenta Max already includes other streaming services, including Netflix.
Apple TV+ listed its fall slate of kids and family fare Monday. It includes new animated series Sago Mini Friends, Slumberkins and Interrupting Chicken, plus live-action series Circuit Breakers.
And in addition to those, kids and their families can enjoy returning favorites plus a new lineup of classic Peanuts specials.
Shooting on the set of Apple TV+ series Lady in the Lake paused Friday afternoon in downtown Baltimore to consider another type of shooting. According to reports, locals threatened that if production didn’t stop, they’d return with guns blazing. Unless producers paid them $50,000.
Taping on the limited crime drama series starring Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram shut down. But producers refused to pay. They opted to move locations instead.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: What does Apple’s star-studded September 7 event invite mean? Some of the speculation is pretty “far out,” but Erfon thinks he has the answer.
Also on The CultCast:
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Apple TV+ is known perhaps first and foremost for its international hit Ted Lasso. But that heartwarming show about a bumbling soccer coach with a positivity streak a mile wide only scratches the surface of the streamer’s burgeoning comedy roster.
Comedy veterans and unlikely newcomers alike staked out spots in the ever-growing Apple TV+ lineup, offering laughs for the cost of emotional engagement with some deeply wounded and weird characters.
Ultimately, the best comedies on Apple TV+ are the ones that hurt a little.
★★★☆☆
Apple TV+ dark comedy Bad Sisters regroups and strikes back harder this week. The Irish series about five sisters and their common enemies keeps winning — by losing.
After the untimely death of Grace’s no-good husband John Paul, Becka won’t let potential new boyfriend Thomas take “no” for an answer. And Thomas’ brother, Matthew, does the same in opening an insurance investigation into the death of Becka’s brother-in-law. In the past, Ursula gets on board with the murder plot as Bibi and Eva reassess after their first botched effort.
★★☆☆☆
Apple TV+ thriller Surface circles the drain this week as it strains for meaning and solves its many mysteries in as tidy a fashion as possible.
Sophie hears two conflicting versions of events about who she really is and where her life was headed before what was either a suicide attempt or an attempted murder. Meanwhile, her husband James and cop Thomas Baden lock horns — with Sophie’s affection their reward.
Surface’s writers have one episode after this to really make everything fall into place.
★★★★★
Apple TV+ thriller Five Days at Memorial enters its tragic endgame this week, with the Coast Guard forcing everyone out of the hospital. That means some patients will be left alone to die by themselves after Hurricane Katrina’s onslaught. Extraordinary measures must be taken — some ethical, some not.
The show’s cast all do their best work this week, and writer/director/producer John Ridley holds their hand every step of the way, doing right by this amazing assortment of talent.
★★☆☆☆
This week on Trying, the Apple TV+ show uses the hackiest sitcom elements imaginable as a backdrop for Jason and Nikki’s emotional problems and Scott and Karen’s awakenings.
Tyler is taken by a miscommunication. Jen is having a crisis of confidence at a crossroads in her life (and Nikki’s about to make it worse). Bev’s got Jason and Nikki in a vice, and Karen may have found her calling.
Does any of this matter when every joke makes your skin crawl? No, not really.
★☆☆☆☆
Oh, brother, here we go again. See is back for its third and final season with more grim, doomy, portentous, heavily filtered, scowling, medieval dystopian tedium for you.
The Apple TV+ show about a future Earth where most everybody is blind takes one last lap through Joseph Campbell and the big book of heroic cliches.
Jason Momoa’s Baba Voss is on the lam, Kofun’s a father (and hates everything about it), Maghra’s having no fun at all being queen, and Kane is still insane in the membrane. Strap in.
Central Park is coming back with more musical adventures. Season three of the highly rated animated comedy will return to Apple TV+ in early September, and a trailer offering a glimpse at the upcoming fun premiered Wednesday.
The second season of Central Park scored an amazing 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
In the first trailer for upcoming docuseries Gutsy, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton take part in animated discussions with strong and accomplished women who inspire them.
The list of participants in the series, which premieres September 9 on Apple TV+, is truly varied. It includes famous names from different walks of life, including Kim Kardashian, Gloria Steinem and Jane Goodall.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+ medical drama Five Days at Memorial, about the terrible misfortune of the staff of an abandoned hospital during Hurricane Katrina, hits the fourth day of disaster this week.
The power is still off, and the A/C is a distant memory. Helicopters are coming to evacuate, but the elevator to the roof is broken. Things are going to get worse before they get better. The gripping drama stays madly compelling and deeply tragic.
★★☆☆☆
Apple TV+ mystery Surface, about a woman suffering from amnesia at the center of a dark web of mystery, finally tells the truth about who mystery woman Sophie really is.
Turns out she was the brains behind the operation, bringing herself and her husband from nothing to a beautiful house, a six-figure income, and more problems than they know how to handle.
So just how did she and James go from a young power couple lying their way to the top to a couple of criminals looking at the barrel end of jail sentences?
★☆☆☆☆
Apple TV+ family comedy Trying hits a snag or two this week, as Jason and Scott both realize they’re running out of road before a fall.
Jason needs money if he wants to pay for the house he’s been renting, which otherwise will be sold out from under him at any minute. Scott needs to make enough money to pay for Karen’s incoming baby, or she’ll continue looking at him as the fatuous loser with his head in the clouds that the show has more than shown us that he is.
On top of that, the adoptees’ grandmother is gunning for custody and she’s willing to fight dirty. Good, I say. This show needs some actual tragedy.
★★★★☆
New Apple TV+ dark comedy Bad Sisters follows a family of Irish women who vow to help each other through thick and thin. Thick comes in the form of a miserable brother-in-law, who’s lying in a coffin and represents loose ends for all of them.
Can they outmaneuver a desperate insurance investigator and keep from turning on each other? This is good TV. Let’s just watch it cook.