Steven Spielberg’s “Amazing Stories” helps push up Apple TV+ viewership. Screenshot: Apple
More people are watching Apple TV+ now that they are staying home to avoid the coronavirus, according to a market-analysis firm. Plus, this streaming service has a couple of strong shows that have increased viewership.
Amazing Stories is now available on Apple TV+. Photo: Apple
The last episode of Amazing Stories season 1 already aired last week, and if you haven’t binged the Steven Spielberg-led series yet, Apple’s new behind-the-scenes look at the show will have you ready to dive in.
Apple published an inside look of Amazing Stories today on YouTube with interviews from executive producers Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz. The duo, along with cast members from each episode, discuss their drive to create fantasy and sci-fi stories that still resonate with the complexities of human reality. To be honest, I always thought the show looked kind of boring but this new featurette has me pretty intrigued.
Kerry Bishé closes out the first season of the new Amazing Stories Photo: Apple TV+
Amazing Stories’ season finale “The Rift” serves as a case study into the rebooted show’s highs and lows. With its five-episode run complete, the ways in which the Apple TV+ anthology series succeeded — and the ways it failed to cohere — become more obvious than ever.
“The Rift” was directed by Mark Mylod and written by Don Handfield and Richard Rayner (co-creators of History Channel’s Knightfall). However, the episode takes more cues from executive producer Steven Spielberg than nearly any of the preceding entries, to both its detriment and its occasional benefit. The real MVP of the piece, however, is the perpetually underrated Kerry Bishé.
All 10 episodes of new Apple TV+ mystery show debuted today. Photo: Apple
Apple TV+ has debuted all 10 episodes of Home Before Dark, its new drama inspired by the real-life reporting of 9-year-old journalist Hilde Lysiak.
The mystery series stars child actress Brooklynn Prince, best known for The Florida Project, alongside Jim Sturgess (Cloud Atlas) and Abby Miller (Justified).
How similar do they look to you? Screenshot: Andrian Murray/YouTube
A photographer claims the production company behind the Apple TV+ series Amazing Stories committed “flagrant copyright infringement” by re-creating an image of his for the show’s intro.
Adrian Murray, of Louisville, Kentucky, alleges an image of two boys opening a glowing chest at about the 45-second mark of the intro is derivative of a work he created with his two sons in 2018.
Michelle Wilson anchors a solid outing of the new Amazing Stories. Photo: Apple TV+
After a bumpy start, the Apple TV+ reboot of Amazing Stories headed off in an agreeable direction. Between its heart-on-the-sleeve emotional core and the very modern, depressive look at the deflation of the American dream, this is a show that understands why people need to believe in the impossible today.
Episode 4, titled “Signs of Life,” might not be a perfect hour of television. However, it’s got its heart in the right place. And a host of excellent elements make its story beats hit with extra force.
The latest episode of the Steven Spielberg executive produced sci-fi anthology series Amazing Stories is available to check out on Apple TV+.
The fourth of five standalone episodes, “Signs of Life,” tells the story of a teenager who struggles to reconnect with the stranger that is their mother after she awakens from a six-year coma. It landed on Apple TV+ Friday morning.
Robert Forster, left, and Tyler Crumley appear in Amazing Stories, the veteran character actor's last work. Photo: Apple TV+
The Apple TV+ reboot of Amazing Storiesstarted with a warning most viewers likely heeded: The show is going to be maudlin, and it will broadcast its emotional and dramatic beats from a mile away. Thankfully, having thrown down that gauntlet, the threat turned into a promise worth keeping. Each episode has been an improvement on the pilot.
“Dynoman and the Volt,” the third episode of the series, has quite a lot to recommend it. Enough, in fact, that it becomes easy to overlook its obvious storytelling and only half-earned poignancy.
Friday means new Apple TV+ content to watch! Photo: Apple TV+
After a brief theatrical run to make it eligible for awards season, Apple TV+ movie The Banker made its debut on the streaming service Friday.
The movie, based on a true story, stars Anthony Mackie and Samuel L. Jackson as Bernard Garrett and Joe Morris, two of the first black bankers in the United States. To get around discriminatory Jim Crow-era laws, they hire a white man (played by Nicholas Hoult) to be the face of their business, while they pose as a chauffeur and janitor.
F. Murray Abraham & Rob McElhenney as the squabbling idiot architects of wildly popular MMORPG Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet Photo: Apple TV+
Trapped indoors with nothing to watch during the COVID-19 quarantine, or just sick of your usual streaming options? Apple TV+ harbors a day’s worth of exciting and compelling programming to finally dig into.
For anyone looking for an excuse to finally give the streaming service a try, here’s a guide to some standout shows. Not every Apple TV+ series is a slam dunk, but there are hidden gems waiting to be binged during these uncertain times.