The sci-fi action comedy Murderbot season 1 is the hottest show premiering this weekend. Apple TV+ turned an award-winning collection of novels into a series that’s fun to watch, with an enjoyable mix of laughs and fight sequences… with some suspense mixed in.

Here’s why you should tune in this weekend, whether you’ve read Martha Wells’ books or not.

Seth Rogen’s hit Hollywood comedy The Studio will return to Apple TV+ for season 2. After the success of the freshman season, Apple TV+ committed Tuesday to making more episodes about the hapless executives of Continental Studios.

Beyond that, it’s a good week for fans of Apple TV+ comedies. The streaming service also announced that the fourth season of Acapulco premieres in July, and the fifth season of Trying is going into production.

Celebrated Apple TV+ shows Slow Horses, Bad Sisters and The Velveteen Rabbit won BAFTA Television Craft Awards at a ceremony Sunday in London. Espionage thriller Slow Horses nabbed two while the others took home one apiece.

BAFTA’s craft awards are similar to technical Emmy and Oscars awards, bestowed separately from the main awards. The main BAFTA awards ceremony takes place May 11.

In an effort to attract new viewers in a hugely competitive streaming market, Apple TV+ unveiled a limited-time promotion Wednesday. It offers a steep 70% discount on Apple TV+ subscriptions for both new and qualified returning subscribers through April 24. The steal of a deal’s timing coincides with Friday’s premiere of Your Friends & Neighbors with Jon Hamm as a rich guy-turned-thief.

The special offer allows eligible customers to subscribe to Apple TV+ for just $2.99 per month for three months, a significant savings from the regular $9.99 monthly fee. This brings the total cost to approximately $9 for the three-month period, making it one of the most affordable ways to access a premium streaming service in today’s competitive market.

Update: Grab the two-thirds off discount on Apple TV+ subscriptions now, because it ends Thursday, April 24.

British actor David Oyelowo stars in the new “surrealist family comedy” Government Cheese, coming to Apple TV+ in spring 2025.

Oyelowo is always good — he also features in Apple’s very popular sci-fi series Silo — so it may be worth checking this one out.

Update: The comedy series is now streaming on Apple TV+. The review-aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes says, “Peculiar and peppy, Government Cheese has some holes but gets by on the strength of its nutty writing and a collection of tangy performances.”

Android just can’t catch a break from U.S. teens. A survey found that 88% of that age group own an iPhone — a figure that’s held fairly steady for years.

What’s not positive news for Apple is how very few teens watch the Apple TV+ streaming service.

Murderbot is not a horror series. It’s sci-fi action comedy, no matter what the name implies — a new trailer for the upcoming Apple TV+ series makes that clear. And the trailer also shows that the plot sticks close to Martha Wells’ award-winning novels.

Watch the trailer for Murderbot season 1 that debuts in May to see for yourself:

Apple TV+ comedy The Studio brings a biting perspective to the entertainment industry, pulling back the curtain on Hollywood’s most absurd realities. The series, starring Seth Rogen, takes viewers deep into the chaotic world of a legacy movie studio struggling to survive in modern-day Hollywood, which is decidedly different from classic Tinseltown. So this The Studio review says green-light this one for your watchlist.

Unlike showbiz satires before it, The Studio focuses tightly on the clash between artistic vision and evolving corporate demands in a streaming-media world. And where else are you going to see Martin Scorsese weep and Ron Howard go ballistic? See three reasons to watch it below.

Apple TV+ controlled 8% of the U.S. streaming market in the first quarter of the year, according to market analysts. That’s the same share it had a year ago, showing Apple’s recent difficulties outcompeting its rivals.

One might think that three months of new episodes of the mega hit Severance would have pushed up the Apple TV+ share of the market, but it got only a small bump over the previous quarter.

Still, that doesn’t mean the number of subscribers to Apple’s video service isn’t growing. While its share of the market is fairly static, the size of the whole streaming market keeps increasing.

It’s season finale time! In our Severance season 2 episode 10 recap of “Cold Harbor,” we find Mark S. carrying out a wild plan with his allies while his tattered team makes a dangerous last stand against Lumon Industries. At 75 minutes, the episode’s a long one, directed by Ben Stiller. And with the hit show just renewed for a third season, the Severance season two finale actually asks more questions than it answers — before delivering a twist at the end.

Last week’s penultimate episode gave us a slower burn than expected on the way to Friday’s climactic season finale, but it did its job. As the macrodata refiners scattered while Mark and his sister Devon teamed up with company soldier Harmony Cobel to fight Lumon, it felt more like everything was coming apart than coming to a frenzied boil. But that groundwork set the stage for Friday’s outstanding final episode.