Apple TV+ - page 41

Apple TV+’s The Afterparty, the show with a kaleidoscopic approach to genre, hits a new low this week as it becomes a dreadful procedural for its penultimate episode. The show has been many things by now — an unfunny cartoon, a musical, an action movie, an arthouse experiment — but it’s never fully just given into being bad television on purpose before now.

There’s something frankly a little insulting about being asked to watch a half-hearted impression of something The Afterparty creator Christopher Miller and the show’s writers keep telling us is bad and a waste of time and unrealistic. I’d much rather just watch a rerun of JAG on Pluto TV than continue with this baleful re-creation.

What, for heaven’s sakes, is the point of The Afterparty?

The Apple TV+ thriller/comedy Severance started out strong. It’s on Reelgood’s list of the Top 10 most-streamed shows of the week.

The series debuted February 18 on Apple’s streaming video service to very positive reviews from critics and audiences.

Apple TV+’s Suspicion has gathered its suspects together and now they have to decide who’s who — and more to the point, who’s guilty.

It’s a Ten Little Indians riff this week as everyone accuses everyone of being more guilty than they are. The suspects are going to have to come as clean as they can if they want to make it out of this bottle episode alive.

Rob Williams and his writers have crafted a nifty detour for these characters as they work together to figure out who’s put them in the spotlight and why. The nation is starting to think they’re heroes, but they might kill each other before any new evidence comes to light and they can prove their innocence.

Apple TV+ released the first full trailer for WeCrashed to get viewers pumped for the limited series that premiers in March. It’ll star Jared Leto as the controversial co-founder of WeWork as he builds a cult of personality that eventually helps take the company down.

Watch the trailer to get ready for the wild ride up… then down.

Season two of The Snoopy Show premieres on Apple TV+ in March, with fresh adventures of Charlie Brown’s irrepressible pooch, his pal Woodstock and the rest of the gang. A new trailer shows the fun to be expected.

It’ll soon be followed by a pair of new Peanuts holiday specials for Earth Day and Mother’s Day.

Servant heads off to the carnival this week as Apple TV+’s show about the madness lurking near a Philadelphia brownstone nudges crisis ever nearer to nanny Leanne and the Turners.

Writer/creator Tony Basgallop and director/producer M. Night Shyamalan prove once again they have a real eye for talent as this week’s hired guns do incredible work building an unyielding atmosphere of discomfort and discovery.

Leanne is finally ready to let her guard down, and the people watching her seem to know it, but who’s watching who, exactly? There’s still an open question about allegiances — and it’s about to get more complicated. There will be blood … and funnel cake.

The kidnapping of Leo Newman remains unsolved in this week’s episode of Apple TV+ thriller Suspicion, as a new suspect enters the game and the stakes jump into the rafters for all concerned. No one is ever going back to their old lives after this.

The original three suspects are taking stock of the damage done to their personal existences when in walks new patsy Eddie and Sean, the psychopath who looks to be out to get away with kidnapping and murder.

It’s been standard-issue mistaken identity so far. But what happens when the body count starts climbing? When the suspects increase without any rhyme or reason? This week’s mostly very solid episode of Suspicion starts asking harder questions — and giving more dispiriting answers.

In celebration of CODA‘s Oscar nomination for Best Picture, Apple TV+ said Friday it will celebrate by re-releasing the indie hit in theaters next weekend. And you’ll be able to watch it for free.

You can see the film for free in theaters from Friday, February 25 to Sunday, February 27.

This week on Apple TV+ show The Afterparty, we hear from the final suspect who attended the reunion that ended with pop star Xavier’s murder. So, if you’ve loved hearing about these events over and over — congratulations! You’re getting them one more time, this time delivered in the form of an unremarkable animated TV show.

Newly single mom Zoë takes Detective Danner through her version of the events that took place that deadly night. Naturally, she makes plenty of detours to talk about her life as a mom and a divorcee, and how hard all of this has been for her.

Her story would prove more compelling if these points hadn’t already been made in the previous five episodes of this dreadful show. It only took half of this short season for The Afterparty to run out of steam. All in all, it’s a pitiful display from comedy performers who should know better.

New Apple TV+ docu-series Lincoln’s Dilemma delivers a fine history lesson in classical PBS form. The four-part series, which premieres today, brings you the story of Lincoln’s presidency and the ways in which he approached the issue of slavery, from his first dealings with the issue until his death at the hands of a Confederate sympathizer.

Stewarded by executive producer/directors Jacqueline Olive and Barak Goodman, executive producer Jelani Cobb and a host of historians and activists, the series’ form is likely too sturdy and utilitarian to change the way anyone views Lincoln.

However, the filmmakers’ intent is admirable. They set out to neither oversell nor undersell Lincoln and his views on slavery, how history has sought to simplify the political figures of the 1860s, and how the Great Emancipator was and was not an adequate moniker for the 16th president of the United States.

Hopefully you didn’t forget Monday is Valentine’s Day, and you can celebrate with the Peanuts gang. The 1975 special Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown is available to stream on Apple TV+.

Unlike the new Peanuts shows and specials on Apple’s streaming service, this one was written by Charles Schultz himself.

The Afterparty, Apple TV+’s Rashomon-style comedy of perspectives, finally looks back at the party before the party. Outkast is on the stereo, the cast get bad haircuts, and everyone makes embarrassing mistakes. Could this explain Xavier’s death?

The show hasn’t done much to engender any good will toward its cast of characters, and this week’s stunt episode doesn’t help things. The Afterparty seems quite taken with the idea of the cast reliving their glory days. But the sight of them all looking younger isn’t quite the gas the writers and director Chris Miller seem to think it is.

Servant conjures up a storm in a teacup this week on Apple TV+. Leanne, the nanny with strange powers, finds herself losing control just as the desperate family she’s here to save needs her most.

Threatened by creeps, stalkers, and pretenders, Leanne has little choice but to let bad things happen to bad people. Writer Laura Marks and director Dylan Holmes Williams create a memorably harrowing half-hour in this week’s episode, entitled “Ring.”

The Sky Is Everywhere, the new Apple TV+ film based on the young adult novel by Jandy Nelson, is exactly what you’re picturing based on its title.

Director Josephine Decker steps away from the indie film world to embrace the things a big studio budget can afford (in this case A24 as well as Apple). And she makes sure that every cent is up there on the screen. Decker gives in too much to the sugar high of teen romance, but she and her very committed cast get an A for effort.

New Apple TV+ thriller Suspicion spends some quality time with its suspected kidnappers this week. As Natalie’s alibis and facades begin to crumble, Aadesh’s life falls apart. Meanwhile, Katherine, Anderson and Vanessa all get impatient for breaks in the case.

This week’s well-acted and tightly paced episode is all about the little lies we tell to help our families — and what happens when we run out of convincing ones.

The nominations are out for the 94th Academy Awards, and Apple TV+ films are up for six Oscars. Two movies from Apple’s streaming service attracted the attention of the Academy: CODA and The Tragedy of Macbeth.

Both films have already garnered a bevy of awards and nomimations.

Apple TV+ set a premiere date of April 29 and put out an initial trailer for the Apple Original horror-thriller series Shining Girls on Friday. And it’s seriously spooky. What with all the blurred reality and scary-shapeshifting-killer vibes, the trailer makes the show look both disturbing and disorienting.

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Servant heads to the park and Julian hunts for DNA in an unsettling new episode of the Apple TV+ series about a mysterious nanny and the broken family she’s trying to help.

This week, Leanne’s paranoia takes a backseat to Julian’s, who’s convinced he has to take steps to protect his sister Dorothy from the cult, from Leanne, and from herself. Guest director Carlo Mirabella-Davis finds a host of new notes to play this week, separating him from his peers in all the right ways.

The amazing Samuel L. Jackson will star in The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey when it premieres on Apple TV+ in March. A new trailer gives an advance look at a series that’s sure to be both uplifting and heartbreaking.

Apple’s streaming service also revealed on Friday that the espionage series Slow Horses starring Gary Oldman will debut in April.

In addition, Apple TV+ gave the launch date for more shows coming this spring — all filled with celebrities.

In a first look at season 2 of the political thriller Tehran, Apple TV+ put out a photograph showing the series’ new cast member, Emmy Award-winner Glenn Close. And the streaming service said the first episode will premiere on May 6.

Apple TV+’s murder mystery/comedy The Afterparty soldiers on this week, investigating drunken party girl (and former valedictorian) Chelsea.

The genre-hopping show, which made a fitful start with last week’s first three mirthless episodes, has no better luck with this week’s half-hearted, half-remembered crime story than it did as a poorly thought-out musical or rom-com.

At this point, it’s a genuine question whether the writers and producers knew what they were doing when The Afterparty snagged a full-season order. Not even the ordinarily reliable Tiffany Haddish seems to be having any fun in this blinkered affair.

Apple TV+ dips its toe into the well of Israeli TV production again for Suspicion. The show, which stars Uma Thurman and premieres Friday, is a no-nonsense, globetrotting thriller with plenty of real-world resonance.

Suspicion is based on False Flag, created by Maria Feldman and Amit Cohen, a binge-worthy series that centered on the murder of Hamas chief Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. But if the reception that other Apple TV+ geopolitical thrillers got is any indication, Suspicion faces an uphill climb to become a hit.

A new Apple TV+ trailer for the Apple Original documentary series Lincoln’s Dilemma shows Honest Abe in a new light, as historians reflect upon what he was really about and how the changing country challenged the president who never asked to be “The Great Emancipator.”

The four-part series hits Apple TV+ all at once, not one episode at a time, on February 18.

Apple TV+ will present an adaptation of the bestselling novel Dear Edward about a boy who was the sole survivor of a tragic plane crash.

The series is being written and will be showrun by Jason Katims, who created the classic series Parenthood and produced Friday Night Lights.

The Tragedy of Macbeth was the third most watched movie on all the streaming services in the United States during January. And it was only available for half the month.

The Apple TV+ version starring starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand is also getting rave reviews from critics.