Dear…, the Apple TV+ show about the public figures who inspire millions, returns for a second season Friday with a new roster of guest stars and a renewed purpose.
The filmed segments — during which we see people who write letters to the inspirational celebrities, as well as the celebs themselves — look splashier this time. The stories prove more gut-wrenching, and Lin-Manuel Miranda is nowhere in sight.
This show’s setup is an easy layup, but sometimes there’s satisfaction in that.
New Apple TV+ thriller/comedy Severance takes a visit to a motivational museum this week. Actors Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Patricia Arquette, John Turturro and Yul Vasquez continue to do amazing work with their offbeat characters in this satirical study of the depressing nature of punching the clock.
Severance’s unique look and science fiction premise continue to pay dividends rich enough to get over some of the hurdles the show occasionally throws at the rational part of your brain.
The Turners throw a truly miserable dinner party on this week’s Servant, the Apple TV+ show about demonic forces assailing the residents of a Philadelphia brownstone.
Leanne makes it her business to embarrass Sean’s guest, Dorothy spies something she shouldn’t, and sober Julian just drinks it all in.
The funniest and most daringly tense episode of the show — powered by Servant creator Tony Basgallop, showrunner M. Night Shyamalan and a host of incredible writers and directors — takes no prisoners. It also gives Nell Tiger Free some of the best comic work she’s done on the show to date.
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?
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.
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.
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.
New Apple TV+ dark comedy/thriller Severance centers on a company man with an unusual relationship to himself and his job. Every day he goes to work, and his brain stays behind.
At work Mark’s a new man — one who doesn’t have to think about his grief or his petty social problems. At home, he’s a sad sack who doesn’t know he’s about to stumble into a conspiracy.
Comedy veteran Ben Stiller and first-time showrunner/writer Dan Erickson collaborated on Severance, which premieres Friday. The unconventional show takes pointed satirical swipes at modern workplace culture, but ultimately offers a deeper look at the meaning of life.
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.
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.
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.
There are strangers in the house on this week’s Servant, the Apple TV+ show about the absurd goings on in a Philadelphia townhouse.
Writer Tony Basgallop and director/producer M. Night Shyamalan continue to reap rich rewards from showing what it looks like when the kookiest people in town try to do things normally. Mystic nightmare nanny Leanne thinks every shadow is a murderer, and Dorothy doesn’t seem to think anything is wrong.
The truth likely lies somewhere in between, but who knows if they can keep it together long enough to discover what’s really going on.
Apple TV+’s newest comedy The Afterparty is a lifeless, listless and laughless murder mystery in seven parts told by dozens of narrators. The premise is novel: Each episode, the first three of which premiere Friday, parodies a different storytelling genre.
Executive produced, written and directed by Christopher Miller and Phil Lord of The Lego Movie fame — and starring a who’s who of contemporary comedians — the show had everything going for it. It is, however, an almost complete misfire.
The Afterparty is neither funny nor fun enough to ever create an identity stronger than any of what it’s lampooning.
Thanks to its partnership with The Jim Henson Company, the creative force behind The Muppets and Sesame Street, Apple TV+ has finally given the people what they want: more Fraggles.
Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock, a faithful and fun reboot of the cult hit puppet show from the ’80s, arrives Friday on Apple TV+ with its verve and good vibes intact.
While the Fraggles never quite rose to the popularity of the Sesame Street gang or Kermit and his friends, they did inspire some passionate fans. It’s a joy to be back at Fraggle Rock, even with the few concessions made to appease a more modern audience.
Servant, the bleakest and most thrillingly deranged show on Apple TV+, returns for a third season Friday. The Turner family and their mystic nightmare nanny have finally turned some corners from which they cannot return. Now it’s time to see what the writers have planned for this gang of thieves, liars and sinners.
Director/producer M. Night Shyamalan and writer Tomy Basgallop’s brainchild turns three today — and I couldn’t be happier to attend the party.
The Tragedy of Macbeth is probably the most experimental thing to stream on Apple TV+ so far.
On its face, the film doesn’t seem all that odd. It’s an adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s most well-regarded and most frequently performed plays, starring the biggest male lead on earth. It’s directed by a multiple-Oscar-winner and features his similarly lauded (and extremely popular and talented) wife in a lead role.
So, while Apple TV+’s most exciting feature film since Wolfwalkers might not sound like much of an experiment, the devil’s in the details. This adaptation is both expected and unexpected — in frequently thrilling ways.
The Tragedy of Macbeth hits Apple TV+ today after a theatrical run. Here’s why you should add it to your Up Next queue.
Apple TV+’s newest animated kids show is all about accessibility. El Deafo, based on the book by Cece Bell, focuses on a little girl who loses her hearing just before the start of school. She goes on misadventures as she learns to navigate the world with the help of her imaginary superhero alter ego. And she learns to love herself in the process.
The show is, if anything, a little too effective at making you feel for this young girl’s struggles. El Deafo is at times too affecting and sad for words — much to the credit of the writer, performers and animators. But it’s an open question whether kids are ready to feel so much on top of everything they’re already dealing with.
Dickinson bids us farewell this week — too soon, but beautifully. What lies in store for Emily and her family in their final outing? Can she overcome history to find a happy ending denied her by fact and legacy?
The Apple TV+ alt-history show says goodbye on a sweet, lightly ambiguous note — and finds its strength in invention. Emily Dickinson we hardly knew ye.
Team Swagger goes to the nationals in the stunning finale of Apple TV+’s incredible show about a basketball team and its players and satellites. Reggie Rock Bythewood and the incredible team of Swagger writers are prepared to send Ike, Jace, Jenna, Crystal and the rest of the team out with a bang.
A season’s worth of innuendo and tension is about to be unearthed and made real.