★★★☆☆
Apple TV+ spy thriller Liaison hits a few snags this week on its way to justice and catharsis. A mostly great episode finds Alison, Gabriel, Dumas and Sophie Saint Roche making deals with unlikely allies on their mad scramble to prevent a private war against the whole of Europe.
Didier is desperate, Sabine is growing hopeless, Alison’s father is in critical condition, and Dumas grows a conscience. There’s blood in the water in this episode, entitled “Family Album.” Who will make it out alive?
★☆☆☆☆
Apple TV+ series Dear Edward brings its tedious first season to a close this week. Edward winds up lost in the big city, sending his adoptive mom Lacey into hysterics. Plus, Dee Dee’s feeling very unappreciated, Shay and Edward get a second chance, Steve and Amanda have a choice to make, and there’s a party on the horizon.
The Dear Edward season finale, entitled “Shelter,” is a whiff of an ending to a whiff of a season. This show, supposedly about grief in the wake of a catastrophic plane crash, turns out to be largely about nothing at all.
★★★★☆
Hello Tomorrow! returns for more Space Age shenanigans — and a brutal comeuppance for one of Earth’s biggest liars. The Apple TV+ show about a guy selling bunk timeshares on the moon finally hits the pause button on momentum to allow a devastating realization to sink in.
Salesman/con artist Jack Billings may be more doomed than he thinks, even as he succeeds beyond his wildest dreams. Shirley and Joey have had enough, Myrtle gets the sign she’s been searching for, Herb makes good, and Jack has to save an old hero in this stellar episode, entitled “The Gargon Mothership.”
★★☆☆☆
Apple TV+ limited series Extrapolations steeps itself in sci-fi wonkery this week as members of a tech billionaire family find themselves on opposing sides of a terrorist action meant to move the needle on climate change.
Novelist Dave Eggers joins the show’s writing team this week, and Edward Norton, Indira Varma and Michael Gandolfini lead the cast.
While this isn’t a bad version of what Extrapolations set out to do, the show’s sprawling mission statement remains blinkered.
★★☆☆☆
It’s wedding time this week on the season finale of Shrinking, the Apple TV+ comedy where no one has problems — and everyone has to solve them anyway.
Brian’s dad has a short time to make his son’s day by agreeing to be his best man, even if the idea of a gay wedding makes him uncomfortable. Jimmy helps Alice get over her latest round of depression about her deceased mom. Sean and Liz head into business together. And Gaby looks for a second job with a little help from Paul.
It’s truly one half of an hour of TV — you can’t take that away from it.
★★★★☆
Eva’s been shot and might be dying on this week’s season three finale of Truth Be Told, the Apple TV+ show about a true crime podcaster.
After last week’s shooting, podcaster Poppy goes looking for the truth behind the recent grim series of events. Trini blames herself for Eva’s fate, and Markus has only one more chance to redeem himself. Can they catch the person responsible for all this misery before it’s too late?
The episode, entitled “A Kiss Not Mine Alone,” brings a nicely plotted, excellently performed close to a very fine season.
★★★☆☆
New Apple TV+ competition show My Kind of Country gives three celebrity judges a chance to train burgeoning country musicians in an attempt to turn them into superstars.
The talent is unconventional and the stakes are high in the show, which is executive produced by Reese Witherspoon and Kacey Musgraves (and underwritten by Apple Music). Nashville better get ready. (And judge Orville Peck better take that thing off his face.)
★★☆☆☆
Ted Lasso, the Apple TV+ show about an American soccer coach killin’ em with kindness in London, finds a new player in the mix and new hurdles at work this week. AFC Richmond is being watched by an old adversary, Roy’s got big feelings for the first time in a while, and everybody’s buzzing about what happens next.
The episode, entitled “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea,” is an above-average outing for the mawkish football comedy. (It’s anyone’s guess if the upward trend will continue.)
★★★★☆
OtterBox’s new OtterGrip Symmetry Series case protects your iPhone, plus it includes a pop-up handle. What sets it apart from the competition is the handle doesn’t interfere with MagSafe wireless charging.
I wrapped my own iPhone 14 Plus in an OtterGrip. I found a lot to like.
★★★★☆
The RiotPWR RP1950 Cloud Gaming Controller solves a problem for iPhone gamers: the controller plugs into the Lightning port in today’s models, but also into the USB-C port that will be in the iPhone 15. In the mean time, the controller can also be used with the many iPad models that use USB-C.
I field-tested RiotPWR’s latest controller and its removable iPhone mount. I understand why Apple likes it enough to put in the online Apple Store.
★★★★☆
Monster Factory, a surprisingly inventive docuseries about wannabe pro wrestlers, is Apple TV+’s best sports docuseries yet. Over the course of its six breezy and beautiful episodes, set at a wrestling farm school in New Jersey, we meet a cast of eccentrics who share a common dream: to throw people around for a living.
They want to become stars, to go down in pro wrestling history. And with cantankerous Danny Cage as their coach, these ne’er-do-wells learn everything there is to know about wrestling — and they teach us, too.
★★★☆☆
Apple TV+ international espionage thriller Liaison recovers from a few body blows this week, in an episode appropriately entitled “Carnage.”
Mark Bolton is dead and Alison might be next, but she won’t roll over for anyone, even with boyfriend and mercenary Gabriel trying to get her to see sense. Sabine wants out, Didier’s in the hot seat, Dumas is getting nervous, and London is still in danger. Liaisons pleasures are major even if it does feel deliberately minor in a lot of important ways.
★★★★☆
The search for a mayoral hopeful’s killer takes center stage on this week’s Truth Be Told, the Apple TV+ crime series told through the lens of podcaster Poppy.
Eva’s on the hunt for a killer, but is it a smokescreen for her own guilt? Poppy can’t decide. Markus is still acting out, and it’s getting in the way of his parenting. Plus, Poppy has some secrets of her own to spill. And fate has one last curveball to throw this crew before the season’s final inning.
★☆☆☆☆
It’s all about splitting and coming back this week on Dear Edward, the Apple TV+ series about the tangled web of grief in the wake of a plane crash.
In the episode, entitled “Paper Covers Rock,” Edward acts out at school and is rewarded with a crisis or two he wasn’t aware were coming his way. Plus, Linda goes into labor, Lacey is clueless, Dee Dee doesn’t want group to end, Adriana and Kojo don’t want their time together to end, and Steve and Amanda don’t want their affair to end.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, your Apple TV+ reviewer is anxious for this dreadful series to end. (The good news is, the end is nigh.)
★★☆☆☆
Shrinking is all about reconciliation this week. The Apple TV+ show about the social circle of a manic pixie dream therapist sees Jimmy Laird trying to mend the rift between his hero, Paul, and his family.
Meanwhile, as Brian prepares for his wedding, he meets with nothing but disappointments and potential catastrophes. Gaby is caught between her rock and a hard place. And Alice makes a fateful mistake.
Everything comes out in the end in “Moving Forward,” this week’s whatever installment of the hit show that could have been an email.
★★★★☆
Hello Tomorrow!, the Apple TV+ show about a salesman running out of ways to talk himself out of damnation, flies into a panic this week. Jack’s celebrity spokesman goes missing, and if he’s found by the wrong people, it could blow his entire operation.
At the same time, Shirley’s starting to wonder about Jack’s lies, and Joey has just stopped believing him entirely. And when Herb gets a brief moment to shine, he blows it immediately. The episode, entitled “Another Day, Another Apocalypse,” delivers another great half-hour of the show with the most verve and wit of anything on the Apple TV+ lineup.
★☆☆☆☆
Astonishingly overwritten and mega-ambitious sci-fi parable Extrapolations, which premiered today on Apple TV+, has a cast of thousands and more than a few things on its mind. None of what show creator Scott Z. Burns (who wrote Contagion and The Bourne Ultimatum) is saying in this show about the impact of climate change can be argued with. But the messages aren’t easily swallowed, either.
Rather than leave room for viewers to draw their own conclusions, Extrapolations sits you down and yells at you for 10 hours of dreary cli-fi drama. It’s certainly distinctive — but that’s not always a good thing.
★★★★☆
Servant, the stellar Apple TV+ show about a supernatural nanny and the Philadelphia family that plays unwitting and unwilling host to her journey, comes to its fiery finale this week.
Leanne must decide who she’s going to serve, and Dorothy decides what her family and life will be from now on. The episode, entitled “Fallen,” serves up a mostly perfect ending to a mostly perfect show.
★★☆☆☆
Three years after Ted Lasso became a runaway smash for Apple TV+, the show returns Wednesday with a fresh blast of unrelenting optimism.
The fish-out-of-water story of an upbeat U.S. football coach leading a team of U.K. footballers somehow became one of the most-watched things in the streaming sphere, fueled by pandemic viewers looking for something — anything — with a positive message. Now, as Ted Lasso season three arrives, there’s a lot of hype to live up to (and a lot of dross that needs papering over).
Can the show’s likely last season cement Ted’s place in TV history? Maybe … but star Jason Sudeikis’ aw-shucks act seems in danger of wearing thin. After all, the new Ted is an awful lot like the old Ted.
Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon is one of the best RPGs in Apple Arcade. It’s a relatively simple dungeon crawler in the spirit of great 16-bit games of the past like Gauntlet. And it can be enjoyed by up to four players at once.
I’ve spent more hours than I could possibly count playing this title from Cornfox & Brothers. Here are seven reasons I think you’ll like it too.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+ thriller Liaison gets down to the dirty business of statecraft this week as Alison and Gabriel head to Brussels for different reasons. A daring refugee camp breakout leads to almosts and what-ifs that drive Alison mad.
Plus, a couple of unfortunate lackeys get put through the ringer — and Britain is still under attack. The episode, entitled “Manipulations,” delivers another solid hour from a team with enough star power to light up London.
★★☆☆☆
Alice goes missing this week on Apple TV+ hit comedy Shrinking, and Jimmy, Paul and Brian are on the case. After exposing Alice to the awkwardness of a social curveball, Jimmy and Gaby alienate her so much that she decides to act out like her dad has been doing for so long.
Meanwhile, Gaby needs to face down a big challenge as she prepares to maybe move on from her divorce. And Brian must confess something to Jimmy that’s going to be painful — and chooses the worst time to do it. All in all, it’s an above-average episode of a very tiresome sitcom.
★★★★☆
Lots and lots of bad judgment and mistakes come to light on this week’s episode of Truth Be Told, Apple TV+’s true crime podcast drama.
It turns out Emily Mills’ kidnapping was something else altogether. Plus, Poppy is pressing hard into other people’s secrets — and into her own for a change, much to Leander’s chagrin. Markus has hit bottom and can’t seem to pull up. Trini gets a much-needed wake-up call, and Eva can’t stop living in the past.
This week’s very fine episode brings some extremely strong performances, and some equally impactful revelations.
M. Night Shyamalan returns to the director’s chair for the penultimate episode of Apple TV+’s Servant, his show about a nanny terrorizing a Philadelphia family in their brownstone.
Leanne has Dorothy all to herself — and Dorothy can’t help but notice. A last-ditch rescue attempt is scuttled after Dorothy insists on hearing some hard truths from Sean and Julian, who may not have the upper hand when they’re done.
Though unnerving and quite upsetting, “Awake” stands tall as one of the greatest episodes yet of this outstanding show.
★★★★☆
Hello Tomorrow!, the Apple TV+ show about hucksters selling a place in the sun (on the moon), takes a trip back in time this week as Jack relives some foundational traumas.
Also this week: Shirley thinks she has a way out of the hole that Brightside’s in, while the one that Herb is stuck in gets deeper by the minute. And Joey finds that there is no end to a life of lies once it really gets going.
This week’s offering, entitled “The Numbers Behind the Numbers,” stacks up as a superlative episode of a superlative program.