The Crowded Room, a psychological thriller starring Tom Holland, is bringing in plenty of viewers. For two weeks now, the Apple TV+ series has been among the most popular shows on any streaming service.
And it’s not the only Apple series doing well — Silo continues to draw a large audience, too.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+ sports drama Swagger returns for a second season in fine form this week. Reggie Rock Bythewood’s account of a high school basketball star and his supportive coach continues with fresh challenges for Jace and his team to face.
With Jace gearing up for college, he needs Ike back in his corner after a brief separation. But will Ike make a good fit at Jace’s new school? This week’s episode, entitled “The World Ain’t Ready,” is thrillingly alive in its depiction of life in Baltimore and the pressures of being very good at what you do.
★★☆☆☆
Apple TV+ psychodrama The Crowded Room takes a look back at Danny’s childhood this week to examine the start of his troubles and trauma.
Danny’s issues began when he was young, in the presence of a mysterious twin brother, an absent father, a new stepdad and a mom tired of being defeated by life. Add to that a sexual abuse case and Danny’s mental illness, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster — and a show that keeps running right up to the line of greatness before retreating.
The first trailer for upcoming Apple TV+ movie The Beanie Bubble has a lot of fun with the Beanie Babies fad of the 1990s.
“Witness the crazy … behind the craze,” shout title screens in all caps between scenes. And Zach Galifianakis and Elizabeth Banks, as the partners behind the bean-filled-stuffed-animal business, do a good job of showing it.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+ comedy Platonic, about two once-former-now-current best friends navigating their relationship, finds Sylvia back at work and Will out of step this week.
A lot has changed since Sylvia was last in the workplace, and the new workload is too much for her, without factoring in everything else that can go wrong in an office. Will tries to help but makes things worse as he himself learns a few lessons about the modern workplace. Entitled “Let the River Run,” it’s a very funny episode of the very funny series.
Turns out Apple TV+ is not going to turn Fritz Lang’s sci-fi classic Metropolis into a series. The ongoing writers’ strike reportedly caused the project to be shut down.
And it’s not the only Apple TV+ project to run afoul of the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike.
Ted Lasso, the comedy that became the first surprise Apple TV+ hit, earned rave reviews with its recent series finale — and now Apple CEO Tim cook wants more!
That’s according to Brendan Hunt, one of the creators and stars of Ted Lasso. Whether Cook will get it or not remains an open question, however.
In this installment of 3 Reasons to Watch, we rewind back to Watch the Sound with Mark Ronson, a 2021 miniseries about the ins and outs of modern music production and recording.
With superproducer Mark Ronson (who’s worked with stars like Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga) as our host, we see the ways in which sound can be manipulated — and the ways in which it is already miraculous. Here’s why you should give this must-see Apple TV+ music miniseries a spin.
★★☆☆☆
New Apple TV+ drama The Crowded Room, about a man arrested for crimes he doesn’t have a real understanding of having committed, takes a trip overseas this week. Danny, fleeing from his past and his crimes, heads to London to look for his dad. But he finds another shady father figure waiting for him instead.
A few botched crimes and some bonding lead Danny down more dead ends as Rya interrogates him and hopes he finally sees the light. The episode, entitled “London,” offers a maddening glimpse at the show The Crowded Room could have been.
★★★☆☆
Apple TV+’s kaleidoscopic urban blight drama City on Fire comes to a close this week with events both explosive and not so much.
Amory’s on the move, William’s holding on for dear life, Regan and Keith are missing a few kids, Nicky and Sol come to blows, Charlie and Lorraine tell the truth, Parsa gets a second chance, and Samantha’s in the dark — just like New York City itself.
The limited series finale, entitled “In the Dark,” brings a suitably emotional ending to a show that narrowly avoided greatness.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+ dystopian sci-fi series Silo, about the last remnants of civilization trapped in a huge underground structure, ratchets up the stakes as Juliette realizes she has only a few hours to set things right or she and Billings will face the music.
A flashback to a tumultuous time serves as her guiding light in the darkness — and even a reconciliation won’t save her. Entitled “Hanna,” it’s a very good episode of this surprise hit sci-fi series as we head into the first season’s home stretch.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+ comedy Platonic hits a milestone this week as Sylvia and Will find boundaries to test they didn’t even know existed. Will learns some hard lessons about aging and relationships, while Sylvia tries to embark on a new chapter of her life without much support.
Entitled “The Big Two Six,” it’s a solid episode of the show about two people in their 40s who reconnect and re-become besties, heedless of optics and obstacles.
Apple TV+ announced a season two renewal for Silo, the dystopian sci-fi mystery currently streaming on the service.
The decision doesn’t come as much of a surprise: the series is a huge hit.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+ comedy High Desert reaches its penultimate episode this week, as Peggy comes close to solving the many mysteries she’s been juggling as a first-time private investigator.
Arman and Heather squeeze Peggy for money she doesn’t have, just as her ne’er-do-well hubby Denny creates more problems for them by resuming his life of crime. Plus, the Gatchis demand answers about their missing sister. Entitled “This Doesn’t Have to Be a Tragedy,” it’s a surprisingly emotional episode of the zany noir.
Season 2 of sci-fi series Foundation explodes like a supernova on Apple TV+ July 14. That may sound a bit dramatic, but the main word that comes to mind upon watching the new trailer for the season the streaming service dropped Tuesday is … epic. And lots of stuff explodes in it.
Or let’s go with “epic saga,” the phrase Apple TV+ used to describe the hit show based on Isaac Asimov’s award-winning stories about a band of exiles defying a crumbling galactic empire.
Antonin Carême rose from humble beginnings in Paris to the height of culinary stardom in Napoleon’s Europe. His story is coming to Apple TV+ as an eight-episode French drama.
Carême’s life had more excitement than one might expect from a chef and author, as he also served as an unwilling spy for France.
Apple TV+ series and films earn a higher average ranking from critics than all other streaming services. So, despite its relatively limited catalog, Apple’s service offers an outsized collection of top-quality content.
Its average quality content ranking is well above Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
In this installment of 3 Reasons to Watch, we look at the Platonic, the surprisingly good comedy from stoner whisperer Seth Rogen, luminous star Rose Byrne and husband and wife writers/directors Francesca Delbanco and Nicholas Stoller.
In the show, which premiered last month on Apple TV+, Byrne and Rogen star as friends who become awkward appendages of each other’s already messy lives. Here’s why you should take a chance on Platonic.
The dystopian sci-fi mystery Silo launched on Apple TV+ in early May, and it’s been at or near the top of the ratings charts ever since. Last week, it was once again more popular than any other streaming series.
Plus, the finale of the sports dramedy Ted Lasso put it in the top 10 as well.
★★☆☆☆
New Apple TV+ thriller The Crowded Room delves into a crime committed in New York at the end of the 1970s. Spider-Man star Tom Holland plays a troubled teen whose life in a halfway house leads to murder.
The miniseries stumbles a fair bit, but when it gets the steps right it proves quite compelling. Its depiction of lowlife decadence and debauchery almost hits the mark, but Holland can’t quite live up to the task of carrying all 10 episodes.
The second season of an Apple TV+ series that turns a murder mystery into a genre-mixing comedy will soon return. Fresh episodes of The Afterparty premier in July.
As the trailer released Thursday shows, there’s a new mystery to solve with a fresh cast of eccentric suspects, though Tiffany Haddish and some of the other stars of season one will be back.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+’s farcical neo-noir High Desert gets tied up this week as Peggy accidentally finds herself at the business end of some dangerous people’s guns. Guru Bob is kidnapped and tormented for his role in selling art forgeries to bad people, while Peggy’s quest to find Bob’s wife lands her in hot water with the Gatchi family.
The episode, entitled “A Nod Is Not a Hello,” is a raucous and funny time, even as the stakes climb higher by the minute
★★★★☆
Apple TV+ comedy Platonic finds Will and Charlie stepping outside of their comfort zones this week, at a greater cost than either imagined.
The show, about two adult friends who try to reclaim their nonsexual friendship at the start of their middle age, finds them Charlie’s wife Sylvia all keeping secrets from each other — a sure sign that everything’s going according to plan, right?
Entitled “My Wife’s Boyfriend,” it’s a surprisingly effective episode, despite all the comic games that come out of left field.
In this installment of 3 Reasons to Watch, we look at M. Night Shyamalan’s wonderfully dark television series Servant. The show, about a supernatural nanny with designs on an upper-class Philadelphia power couple and their missing baby, attracted an amazing array of directorial talent and some amazing on-screen presences.
Here’s why you should watch all four seasons of this runaway freight train of a show.
The breathtaking first season of Apple TV+ drama Drops of God was deeply, compulsively consumable, just like the fine wine on the show itself. A fascinating portrait of obsessives consumed by a familial burden — and the promise of millions — the season wrapped today with a fantastic finale.
Cult of Mac spoke to lead actor Fleur Geffrier about the process of inhabiting a wine expert’s palette, the challenges and lessons she learned while making Drops of God, and how to make the internal external.
