★★★★☆
The Big Door Prize stares down the barrel at the end of its first season with the first lovey-dovey installment of a two-part finale.
The Apple TV+ sci-fi comedy about a machine that predicts the futures of the busybodies in a small town — and changes a few too many lives in the process — puts on a big display of emotional fireworks in “Deerfest: Part One.” It’s one of the finest episodes of the season.
★★★★★
Soundcore’s new Motion X600 Hi-Res Bluetooth Speaker is a keeper if you’re after a fantastic-looking portable speaker with convincing-enough spatial audio.
It starts shipping May 9, and if you pay just $1 for an early-bird coupon Monday — before the preorder promotion ends early Tuesday morning — you get the X600 for $149 instead of $199 at launch. That’s a fantastic value for anyone unsure they want to pony up twice as much for a second-gen HomePod.
Cult of Mac is pleased to debut a new feature, 3 Reasons to Watch, in which we highlight an Apple TV+ show or movie worthy of consideration. This week we’re looking at sommelier potboiler Drops of God, based on the manga by Yuko and Shin Kibayashi.
The show is currently airing its first season. Here’s why Drops of God is worth your time.
★★★☆☆
Apple TV+ series Drops of God, about two wine experts competing to win a priceless cellar and their dead father figure’s favor, takes a trip down memory lane this week.
Alexandre and Marianne Léger relive their first tribulations, as well as their decision to move to Japan. And Issei’s mother remembers her first encounter with Alexandre, and how he ended up changing her life.
It’s a bit of a letdown that the episode, entitled “Foundation,” drifts from the show’s main action. However, this beautifully acted and well-directed detour proves very good nevertheless.
★★★☆☆
The Last Thing He Told Me, the Apple TV+ limited series about a shady software developer with a checkered past who vanishes from his wife and daughter’s life, heads to a bar for a fateful drink and a little interrogation this week.
Hannah and Bailey find themselves dancing ever closer to the truth about their missing husband/father, and danger looms around every corner. The episode, entitled “The Never Dry,” makes for a pretty tense outing of the sometimes-too-casual mystery series.
★★★☆☆
New Apple TV+ series Silo packs what may be the last people on earth into a huge, mysterious structure. Like Snowpiercer pointed straight up, this show offers a look at the hierarchies and conspiracies of silence that lead to cataclysmic turns of events.
This shaggy dog post-apocalyptic story — with an all-star cast spouting a lot of silly sci-fi lingo and exaggerated futurespeak — gets off to a compelling start this week.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+ musical comedy Schmigadoon! wraps its second season with an action-packed episode this week entitled “Over and Done.” Josh and Melissa are being held captive, and unless some unlikely people decide to change their ways and recover from past wounds, they’ll be killed or married — or both!
It’s a lovely little wrap to the big-hearted show’s second season.
★★★★☆
The Big Door Prize focuses on the prickly mayor of Deerfield this week. The Apple TV+ show, about a small town interrupted in a big way by a machine that’s supposed to be capable of telling people’s futures, digs deep into the hidden feelings among Deerfield’s citizenry.
The episode, entitled “Izzy,” proves very affecting.
★★★☆☆
Ted Lasso finds almost everyone in a rut this week. Keeley is a wreck after leaked footage of her reaches the internet, and it may have even worse consequences than she fears. Ted thinks his wife is going to get engaged to someone else — and he’s not handling it well.
The thornier-than-usual episode, entitled “We’ll Never Have Paris,” still comes with the usual gallon of sentimentality we expect from the most popular show on Apple TV+.
★★★☆☆
The mophie powerstation XL offers 20,000mAh that goes with you anywhere, always ready to charge up your iPhone, iPad or MacBook. It stores enough juice to keep devices going for days.
It comes at a relatively low price for such a high-capacity battery, especially one made by a very reputable company.
I put the consumer-grade power bank through testing to make sure real-world performance lives up to the specifications.
★★★★☆
You’ll find plenty of multiport GaN chargers in the market. Unfortunately, most of them will struggle to charge your MacBook Pro at full speed alongside other devices.
When traveling, this could force you to carry an extra power brick. This is where Chargeasap’s Zeus 270W USB-C charger comes in. It packs enough power to charge multiple devices simultaneously. As a result, it’s become my go-to travel charger on road trips and vacations.
★★★☆☆
Apple TV+ thriller The Last Thing He Told Me hits the books this week as Bailey and Hannah recover from some dead ends and track down some new promising leads in the search for a missing man.
The limited series, about an AWOL software programmer and the trail of devastation he left behind him, finds bereaved Hannah and Bailey inching closer to the truth of who their husband/father really was, while the noose tightens back home. The episode, entitled “Witness to Your Life,” is a reasonably gripping installment of a show that’s getting a little better with each episode.
★★★★☆
New Apple TV+ series Drops of God, about a contest of senses to win the fortune of the world’s most famous eccentric wine connoisseur, hits a roadblock this week. Issei considers quitting — and Camille isn’t 100% she’s ready to face him if he doesn’t.
Plus, Camille hatches an elaborate plot to get herself back on equal footing with Issei. And Issei’s plans to save face don’t go as planned. Entitled “Duel,” it’s a most exciting episode of this excitingly peculiar show.
★★★★★
New Apple TV+ children’s show Frog and Toad, based on the classic book series by Arnold Lobel about two amphibious friends, is smartly and simply animated in the style of the Caldecott Award-winning author.
Frog and Toad is a real gem — a welcome inclusion in the Apple TV+ lineup, and an honorable adaptation of a classic.
Ghosted is the first straight-out action movie to premiere on Apple TV+. The film, which stars Chris Evans and Ana de Armas, has been savaged by critics, but it really does not deserve all the insults.
True, it’s far from perfect. However, Ghosted delivers some good fight scenes and a laugh or two. And that’s probably all you want from a made-for-streaming action flick.
★★★☆☆
Apple TV+ musical comedy Schmigadoon! finds love in all the wrong places this week. Melissa goes from nobody to somebody, and Josh finds his calling as a spiritual leader, which is the last thing they need right now.
In their quest to make things right in Schmicago, they tangle things up worse than ever — and they clearly don’t have a clean exit strategy. The episode, entitled “Famous as Hell,” is a rousing chapter of the Schmigadoon! saga.
★★★☆☆
Ted Lasso, the Apple TV+ show dipped in positivity and marinated in feculence, sketches a few days in a few of its characters’ lives this week.
Ted, Beard and Roy attempt Total Football. Sam is hounded by the political climate. Keeley needs to learn when to say when, and Jamie has a breakthrough. An otherwise very strong episode of the biggest hit on Apple TV+ is undercut by the series’ usual foibles in the episode, entitled “The Strings That Bind Us.”
★★★★☆
The Big Door Prize throws a gala this week in an emotional installment of the Apple TV+ show about a town upended by an apparently psychic machine.
Cass gives herself a huge project, and only Giorgio seems to be on her wavelength about its relative importance. Meanwhile, Dusty gets high, Father Reuben gets jealous, and Izzy goes on the warpath in a very successful episode, entitled “Giorgio.”
★★★★☆
Already known for surprisingly good budget earbuds, Tozo rolled out new flagship active noise-canceling (ANC) wireless earbuds at CES 2023 to compete with the big players. And the Tozo Golden X1 Wireless Earbuds do just that, with a sleek design, quality sound but somewhat meh noise cancellation for a reasonable price (especially with available discounts).
Tozo sent me a pair of Golden X1 buds to check out. They sound excellent — as good as premium earbuds that cost twice as much — but the active noise canceling could be better.
★★★★★
If you’re the right kind of person, the Untitled Folder Wallet by Nik Bentel is handy and practical while doubling as a funny visual joke. It’s a premium leather wallet that happens to look exactly like the New Folder icon in macOS.
It has three pockets for carrying cards, cash and coins. The leather is soft and the stitching holds strong. And best of all, it’s shaped like a tiny folder.
It’s a limited-run item of only 500 units, so if you want one, you’d best order now. I’ve been using it for about a week. Surprisingly, I fell in love with it.
Sonic the Hedgehog knows everything worth knowing about speed, so it’s no surprise that Sonic Racing from Sega is one of the best games on Apple Arcade.
It’s a popular, and available for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV. Add some excitement to your weekend by giving it a try. Here are 5 reason why I think you’ll love it.
★★☆☆☆
Extrapolations creator Scott Z. Burns brings his wildly misguided and ambitious Apple TV+ show about global warming, to a close this week the only way he possibly could: with a lengthy, boring courtroom drama
The cast comes out for a bow to sum up, loudly and with no subtext, all of Burns’ findings and thoughts about global climate change and how people need to do something about it. The Extrapolations finale, entitled “2070: Ecocide,” proves just as thrilling as it sounds.
★★★☆☆
The Last Thing He Told Me, the new Apple TV+ thriller series about a woman and her moody teenage stepdaughter investigating a disappearance, finds the beleaguered pair in Austin, Texas, this week.
Revelations come fast and furious, and Bailey’s reluctant march toward the wrong conclusion keeps her on edge, while Hannah questions everything she thought she knew. The episode, entitled “Keep Austin Weird,” represents a major step up for this limited series. But there’s still a lot of ground to cover before it could hope to arrive at great.
☆☆☆☆☆
New Apple TV+ action movie Ghosted is probably the most fake movie you’ll see this year, if indeed you decide to punish yourself by watching it. Slackly paced, howlingly unfunny, acted in complete boredom and frustration, and deeply uninterested in the handful of genres it touches upon, it’s maddeningly devoid of anything resembling a spark of creativity or charisma.
The flick boast some big-name stars, including Chris Evans and Ana de Armas, but Apple kept this one away from critics until the day before release for a very good reason.
★★★★☆
New Apple TV+ series Drops of God centers on two people possessed by their devotion to and understanding of the art of creating wine. A young heiress to a fortune in wine has to compete with her father’s favorite protege in order to prove which of them learned anything from his years of trying to impart wisdom.
Based on a manga and dripping in elegance, this one’s got a lot to recommend it.