★★☆☆☆
Which surfer will reign supreme? Photo: Apple TV+
Make or Break, Apple TV+’s surfing competition series, returns for its second season this week, throwing us right back into the personal lives and challenges facing the greatest wave riders in the world as they prepare for a world championship.
Who will be crowned the best? If that question excites you, you’ll have a fine time with this by-the-numbers surfing docuseries.
★★★★☆
Things go all kinds of crazy this week on Servant ... and then there's the vengeful goat! Photo: Apple TV+
Apple TV+’s Servant takes a trip to a backyard zoo this week. The show about the world’s scariest nanny and her burgeoning mystical powers finds the Turner family in the middle of a circus of violence, vomit and vengeance.
The cult members haven’t run out of ideas about ways to get Leanne back, even if Dorothy has. Plus, Sean and Julian have a brutal heart-to-heart. And Bev has a bone to pick with Leanne.
The episode, entitled “Zoo,” is another marvelously unhinged half-hour of television from the best crew in the biz.
★★★★☆
Zarina (played by Merle Dandridge, left) and Markus (Mekhi Phifer) continue the search for their missing daughter. this week. And Poppy has a crazy plan that might help. Photo: Apple TV+
Trini is still lost, and Markus and Poppy are still sweating every minute she’s gone this week on Apple TV+ true crime podcast drama Truth Be Told. Trini’s location is right within everyone’s fingertips, but they still can’t be sure where she is.
Finney’s every move is now being watched, but he may have already pocketed the Oakland Police Department. Aames, Poppy, Markus, Eva and Leander are all mobilized, but without a solid clue that won’t do any good. Can they rescue Trini before she suffers the same fate as Eva?
★★☆☆☆
Alice (played by Lukita Maxwell, right) has her eye on Sean (Luke Tennie). Photo: Apple TV+
Apple TV+’s Shrinking, in which Jason Segel plays a therapist on the edge, continues to circle the drain this week. When James learns that his daughter Alice has feelings for a guy, it scares him — and he doesn’t know where to turn.
Gaby and Brian must meet in the middle on an issue of matrimony. Paul and Sean both need to overcome something pretty big in order to start healing. And at the center of everything is a wounded Alice, pulling everyone’s strings.
★★★★☆
Jack (played by Billy Crudup) plays a pitchman with something to hide in retro-futuristic series Hello Tomorrow! Photo: Apple TV+
New Apple TV+ show Hello Tomorrow! blasts back to the future with a pumped-up Space Age pitchman fighting hard to keep his head above water. Actor Billy Crudup, who dazzled us on The Morning Show, puts in another magnificent turn as the Don Draper-style head of a sales team selling timeshares on the moon in a retro-futurist suburban community.
The new series, the first three episodes of which premiere today, has an awful lot on its mind — and only 30-minute episodes in which to say it all. While the delivery feels a little rushed, I’m calling it: Hello Tomorrow! is a special show.
★★★☆☆
Tom (played by Justice Smith, left) and Sandra (Briana Middleton) find they have something in common. Photo: Apple TV+
Apple TV+ neo-noir thriller Sharper centers on a circle of power players and would-be moguls scattered across New York City. The film adopts a La Rondestructure in tracing the malice and greed that motivates the con artists. And its sleek, Instagram-inspired look, as well as its ’80s-style score, make the ill-gotten gains shine all the brighter.
Premiering today, Sharper is a perfectly fine movie. But unfortunately, it’s designed to be forgotten the day after it’s been seen.
Pretty Woman is one of several rom-coms now available on Apple TV+. Screenshot: Apple TV+
Apple TV+ subscribers can enjoy a collection of half a dozen classic romantic comedies added to the streaming service just in time for Valentine’s Day.
The list includes Pretty Woman, Never Been Kissed and more.
An Apple TV+ show starring Jason Segel and Harrison Ford is drawing plenty of viewers. Image: Apple TV+
The new comedy Shrinking has become a standout success for Apple TV+, according to two audience-tracking companies. The last new shows on the streaming service to attract so much attention were Black Bird and Severance. Not that the three series have much in common, besides being able to pull in large numbers of viewers.
Shrinking, which stars Jason Segel and Harrison Ford, is about a therapist who throws out the rulebook and tells his clients what he really thinks they should do.
★★★★☆
Let's cut to the chase: This is a very sharp episode of Servant. Photo: Apple TV+
Sean and Dorothy throw a partythis week on Servant, the Apple TV+ show about a nanny who is more than she seems and the family harboring her. Leanne is starting to notice that her adopted family isn’t being quite as familial and loving as she’d like. And she decides something must be done about it.
As the neighborhood gathers in the Turner household, Leanne plots her own pincer maneuver in a brilliantly directed installment of the best series on Apple TV+.
★★★★☆
The search for a missing girl intensifies this week on Truth Be Told. Photo: Apple TV+
We’ve got a fugitive on our hands on this week’s Truth Be Told, the Apple TV+ series about a true crime podcaster and her little corner of Oakland, California.
Trini is missing and Poppy’s solutions all involve a lot of risk. Markus and Zarina are sweating and at each other’s throats while searching for their daughter. Eva learns something about her lover and runs into an old acquaintance. And Leander tries hard to stay on Poppy’s good side.
The episode, entitled “Never Take Your Eyes Off Her,” serves up another gripping 45 minutes of television from this crew.