James R | On 13, Mar 2022

Apple TV+ is catching the world’s attention with its winning hit Ted Lasso, but the tech giant’s fledgling subscription service has built up an impressive streaming library of originals that belies its small size. From feel-good comedies to gripping dramas, we round up the best 10 TV series on Apple TV+:

Ted Lasso: Season 1 and 2

“I can’t help but root for him,” remarks a character in the opening episodes of Ted Lasso, Apple TV+’s new comedy. It’s a sentiment you’ll soon find yourself sharing – even though you likely have no idea who on earth Ted Lasso is. A clueless football coach, he was initially conceived by Jason Sudeikis for a couple of short skits for NBC Sports in 2013 to promote the network’s coverage of Premier League football. Now, seven years on, he’s been fleshed out into a full leading man. Sudeikis is hugely charming in what emerges as the nicest show on TV right now. A delightful, optimistic TV gem. Read our full review

The Morning Show

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” admits Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) several episodes into The Morning Show, Apple TV+’s new newsroom drama. It’s a rare moment of honesty in a show that questions what exactly that is in the modern media age. The result is a star-studded, fast-paced, whip-smart breakdown of the current state of journalism, a show that captures the buzz of a studio, the hum of 24/7 media attention, the pressure of trying to stay true to one’s self while also staying relevant. In other words, it’s everything you could want a flagship TV drama to be. Read our full review

Visible: Out of Television

“I think TV profoundly affects the way people feel about themselves,” says someone in Visible: Out on Television, a documentary that examines the relationship of the LGBTQ+ movement and the small screen. The five-part series takes us through the history of both the movement and TV, from the early days when LGBTQ+ people where portrayed as maniacs or deviants to the 1970s when positive portrayals of LGBTQ+ people began to emerge – and through to the current wave of LGBTQ+ creators who have made it within the industry open the door for greater inclusion of talent and voices off screen to wider representation on it. Superb. Read our full review

Little America

“You belong here as much as they do,” a coach tells young student Marisol (Jearnest Corchado) in Little America. A compendium of tales following immigrants coming to America, or Americans born to a generation who did, Apple TV+’s new series is a collection of those little moments – tiny declarations of identity and affirmations of belonging. They hit hard with heart and hope. This heartwarming anthology of coming-to-America tales is an uplifting, inspiring watch. Read our full review

Watch the Sound with Mark Ronson

“I had never made anything that emotional before.” That’s Mark Ronson talking about the song Back to Black and how he used reverb to bring a loneliness and vulnerability to Amy Winehouse’s recording of that seminal track. He describes it as the moment his career as a producer really began, and it’s that personal touch that makes this documentary series such an absorbing and interesting watch. Each episode explores a different technical aspect of music production, from Auto-Tune to sampling. Stuffed with star talking heads and practical demonstrations, the show balances Ronson’s confidence and knowledge with a self-aware sense of humour and an infectious passion and enthusiasm. It’s an emotional watch as much as an educational watch – and guaranteed to delight music lovers. Read our full review

Schmigadoon!

Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key star in this delightful musical comedy that sends up golden-age musicals. They play a bickering couple who go on a retreat to strengthen their relationship – only to end up in the titular town and find out that they can’t leave without finding their true love. Cue a host of meddling locals, potential other matches and no end of fun supporting characters, including the town mayor played by Alan Cummings. Add in pitch-perfect pastiches of musical classics, such as Oklahoma!, and you have a fun, charming number. Read our full review

Central Park: Season 1 and 2

From the creator of Bob’s Burgers, Loren Bouchard, the show is a full-on, unabashed musical, a show that isn’t afraid to sing its ambitions and emotions loud and proud. Within the opening episode alone, there are multiple song-and-dance numbers, at least one of which will be stuck in your head for days. By the time you reach Episode 4, the show has grown into a rapturous showstopper that turns its feeling of joy up to 11. Sweet, surreal and stuffed with memorable songs, this animated love letter to parks is a pure delight. Read our full review

Tehran

From the name alone, it’s clear that this miles away from a Ewan McGregor docuseries or prestige US TV drama. The Israeli production hails from Moshe Zonder, one of the co-creators of Fauda, which has become an international hit on Netflix. This has every bit of that show’s suspense and class, cementing the rise of Israeli TV creators on the global stage, something that has been on the cards ever since Prisoners of War was remade into Homeland. This fast, thrilling, stylish spy series is a gripping, grounded ride. Read our full review

Servant: Season 1 to 3

When is an M. Night Shyamalan story not an M. Night Shyamalan story? Apple TV+ gives us the answer with Servant, a psychological thriller that wastes no time in dishing up its big, juicy reveal. The opening episode introduces us to Dorothy (Lauren Ambrose) and Sean (Toby Kebbell), a wealthy married couple who are currently dealing with the loss of their baby son, Jericho. To cope, Dorothy has got a reborn doll, a plastic toy figure to stand in for him. And, by the time the 30-minute opening episode is up, things have only gotten eerier. This stylish, sinister thriller is enjoyably ridiculous viewing. Read our full review

Defending Jacob

Based on the 2012 New York Times best-selling novel of the same name, this legal drama sees Chris Evans play Andy, an assistant district attorney whose life is good and family is picture-perfect. But things go awry when Ben, a 14-year-old pupil, is found dead in the woods just outside of town – and his son, Jacob (Jaeden Martell), becomes a key suspect. It’s a shock to Andy and Laurie (Michelle Dockery), who find themselves trying to maintain their child’s innocence while also fending off the increasingly hostile town locals. A strong cast grounds this thriller with compelling realism. Read our full review

Trying: Season 1 and 2

Trying is a likeable comedy about a couple trying to have a baby – or, more accurately, failing to have a baby.  Rafe Spall and Esther Smith star as Jason and Nikki, an English-as-a-foreign-language teacher and a car hire company employee respectively. Neither of them are hugely smart, neither of them are very well off, and neither of them have much experience with kids. But they are, fortunately, very likeable nonetheless, and a large part of that is Spall and Smith’s natural chemistry. They make each other laugh in a way that feels like the characters want to make each other laugh, and pick up on each other’s faults in a way that feels like they know them only too well. Read our full review

Earth at Night in Color

Nature documentaries are a staple of modern TV, their stunning visuals lending themselves to UHD streaming and their reminder of our planet’s natural wonders chiming with the urgent environmental crisis on our hands. While David Attenborough is the king of this jungle, Tom Hiddleston proves a more then adept substitute, narrating this nocturnal series with an infectious sense of admiration and awe. He’s supported by some jaw-dropping camerawork, which uses cutting-edge cameras to capture the lives of animals after dusk – in, as the title suggests, in colour. We begin with a pride of lions, giving us a chance to see just how far a lioness will go to find a cub she’s lost and support her family. Read our full review

Dickinson: Season 1 to 3

“Because I could not stop for death…” begins Emily Dickinson (Hailee Steinfeld) in the new Apple TV+ comedy Dickinson. It’s only a matter of minutes until death himself really does turn up in a black carriage to kindly stop for her. And the way you respond to that literal interpretation of the iconic poet’s work will likely dictate how you respond to this bizarre, but bizarrely entertaining, TV show about her. This is an enjoyably unconventional watch. Read our full review

For All Mankind: Season 1 and 2<

The premise for Ron Moore’s alt-history drama is wonderfully simple and full of fascinating potential: what if Russia won the space race? The opportunity for surprises is apparently immediately, as we see the moon landing take place in 1969, only for a Russian astronaut to end up on our lunar cousin, leaving America facing a red moon in the sky. The response is both shame and determination to catch up, and so we follow NASA as it races to get back in the pilot’s seat. It’s a cracking concept for a series, one that resonates with themes of national identity, global politics and scientific progress. Compelling viewing. Read our full review

Severance

“Am I livestock? Did you grow me for food?” Those are the words of Helly (Britt Lower), a newcomer to Lumen Industries, a gigantic tech firm that specialises in – well, nobody really knows. In a world of corporate security and advanced technology, Lumen has developed a radical technique that all its employees undergo: severance, the separation of one’s mind inside and outside of the office. If that sounds sinister, you’re already on the right wavelength for this brain-bending drama, which dives head-on into the toxic nature of modern society’s work-life balance, with Adam Scott delivering a downbeat turn that becomes more intense the more time he spends at work. If you can’t remember what you do at work, or what your company does, how culpable are you? If you can’t make that moral judgement, do you have any free will? Creator and writer Dan Erickson (The Good Fight) lets these concerns spin round our heads, while director Ben Stiller dizzyingly positions each plate for maximum discomfort, without losing the sensitive humanity required to keep us invested in the first place – even if that’s just so we can continue to get lost in this chilling maze of black mirrors. The result is a unique and unnerving piece of world-building, and one of the most worryingly pertinent TV shows of 2022. Read our full review

The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray

Samuel L Jackson is one of the most recognisable and exuberant screen presences around. He delivers a remarkably vulnerable, almost unrecognisable performance in The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray, a drama about a man living with rapidly advancing dementia. Ptolemy, who lives alone with only his great nephew, Reggie (Omar Benson Miller), watching out for him, is an outsider on the fringe a society that has, tragically, forgotten him. But when a scientist (Walter Goggins) approaches him with a radical, experimental treatment to restore his memory and cognitive functions, Ptolemy finds himself thrown into a mystery that he becomes determined to solve. The result is a rich, moving, gripping series. Read our full review

Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock

Fraggle Rock is back, bigger and brighter than ever in this warm and beautiful reboot. Read our full review

Foundation

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels have long been considered unfilmable, thanks to their expansive scope and defiantly abstract subject matter – the compilation of a really big encyclopaedia. If that sounds dry, you’re not wrong, and the books’ challenging nature are compounded by their structure of several separate stories set across hundreds of years. The one recurring character? The universe’s most ambitious dictionary. But Foundation the TV series makes it clear from the off that it’s not doing things by the book. Showrunner David S Goyer zooms in on the first novel, chronicling gradually the tensions and conflicts that arise from the prediction by mathematician Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) that society will soon collapse and a repository of knowledge is needed to help rebuild things. But Goyer also introduces the antagonist of human nature in the form of an emperor who has cloned himself so that he can live on in power forever, played by Lee Pace. It’s a smart move because it allows the show to retain the themes of civilisation, the common good, the value of history and the power of science – while also letting us enjoy watching Lee Pace swagger about as some kind of space king. There really is something for everybody here. Read our full review

The Afterparty

“Nothing can ruin this night,” declares Aniq (Sam Richardson) as he rocks up to his high school reunion. Cut to: the dead body of a former student being discovered on the beach by his luxury mansion. That’s the kind of playfully dark silliness you can expect from The Afterparty, a murder mystery comedy from Christopher Miller and Phil Lord. The duo are the kings of self-aware comedy and this marks the long-awaited realisation of a dream project for Miller, who serves as showrunner and director, and turns the tropes of a classic detective story on its head – by telling the story eight times over, each time from a different perspective. And, just for LOLs, through the lens of a different film genre too, from rom-com to (the most inspired of all) a musical episode. The result is a smart riff on the way that everyone’s individual biases and viewpoints colour their own memories and worldview, but most of all it’s an excuse for some very funny people to be funny all in the same room. Throw in a Saul Bass-worthy title sequence and you have Apple TV+’s answer to Only Murders in the Building. Read our full review

See

From Peaky Blinders and Taboo to even Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, there’s no doubt that Steven Knight is a man who knows an interesting idea for a TV show when he sees it. That’s try for this Apple TV+ launch title. Set in a future where a virus has decimated mankind and left the survivors blind, it’s a fascinating concept executed with a glossy budget and gritty conviction. Read our full review

 

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