Money cannot always buy happiness, right? Money cannot always buy quality, right? Sure, but it can come awfully close. It’s just that we don’t like to admit it.
The Netflix juggernaut has to be stopped. Many a top studio executive would have thought that. A few have tried. But none have come close. Very few had the resources to do it, anyway. Apple did. And they set out to create original content that would rival Netflix, Prime and the others. After all, they had the deepest of pockets. They threw money at top creators and stars and set out to build a really good library that would be the envy of all.
They didn’t succeed. They wouldn’t have. The target was too steep and the timeline too short. The surprise was that they didn’t fail. Post-pandemic, Apple went through an incredible phase where they started getting out bangers one after the other. Apple always made a big deal about exclusivity, which meant all their products were ridiculously expensive. Apple TV in India at Rs 99 per month makes quite a dent, but there is now enough content for you to take that connection at least for a few months.
I am going through some of the Apple content that I watched and would recommend for anyone who is trying out the service for the first time.
Severance: Sci-fi.
If you want to see just one series from Apple, then this should be one. Hands down, the best sci-fi series of the decade. And I am not one to indulge in too much hyperbole. The series follows employees in Lumon Industries, an organization that deals with something so secretive that it asks it employees to undergo the Severance procedure. Through this, the employee at work would have no idea who he was outside, and vice versa. There would be a work persona and an everywhere-but-work persona. Why would someone want to do it? Turns out human beings are complicated.
Adam Scott in a still from Severance
Created by almost first-time writer Dan Erickson and directed by Ben Stiller and others, Severance hypnotizes you with its unique imagination, startling aesthetic and unbridled ambition. Cinematography is mostly by Jessica Lee Gagne and she immerses you in this almost-dystopian world both inside and outside the offices. Rarely has snow played such an important part in developing the mood of the characters.
The cast led by Adam Scott Britt Lower and Patricia Arquette is incredible. A workplace romance between two titans of cinema is probably the most heartfelt and heart-breaking thing you have seen on screen.
Season One really flirts with the definition of flawless. Season Two was much delayed due to behind-the-scenes drama and I lost all hope that it would be half decent. Well, it turned out better than anything else I had seen in ages, bar Season One. While it veered more towards weirdness, the season surprised with how much it kept you hooked.
Two seasons in, Severance is right up there on the lists of best sci-fi shows of all time. Its only crime is not enough people have seen it.
Ted Lasso: Sports Comedy
Ted Lasso is what brought Apple TV to the mainstream. It came, it conquered, it left. It was a perfect confection of relatable storytelling, lovable characters, and a vibe that refuses to see the glass as anything but overflowing.
Ted Lasso is an American football coach who is hired to coach a low-tier English football club. He has no idea of how to train technically but believes that the requisites to succeed are the same across sports. It is just people. Over three short seasons, it made Americans interested in ‘soccer’, the English interested in ‘gasp’ Americans, and all of us interested in sporting a goofy grin right through the series.
A still from Ted Lasso
The actors elevate a feel-good series to almost art. Jason Sudeikis does such a brilliant job of convincing us that Lasso is goodness personified. We forget that Sudeikis is actually a pretty sleazy individual. (Don’t believe me? Read up on his breakup from Olivia Wilde.) Hannah Waddingham is the prim, but not proper, owner of the club. Comedian Brett Goldstein, who was originally hired as a writer on the series, ended up as fan favourite Roy Kent.
Ted Lasso and his makers decided to hang up his boots after Season Three. A perfect ending to a really good show. But the fandom didn’t die. And after a couple of years, Sudeikis and others announced that they were coming out of retirement. Season Four will come out this year. I give more odds to Arsenal winning the Premier League than it turning out remotely as good as its earlier seasons. But I will still check it out.
Slow Horses: Spy thriller
It was supposed to be the hidden gem. The genie in the bottle. The secret a select few knew and cherished. It was whispered in dark corridors and near water fountains. Only the nerds watched it and they couldn’t stop shouting about it. But because they were so few in number, the voices were never heard.
Well, it’s 2026. The genie has definitely shattered the bottle and come out. Slow Horses is in everybody’s conversation. The Emmys are slowly waking up to the fact that they are looking incredibly foolish by not awarding one of the best things on Television. Slow Horses has gone mainstream.
Slow Horses are disgraced MI5 agents who are kept at an arm and a leg away from regular spy operations. They work out of a dingy office called Slough House. Slow horses in Slough House. Geddit? They report to Jackson Lamb, a bungling ex-spy who is foul-mouthed and prone to alcohol and flatulence. Despite his best efforts, the motley crew bunch end up saving the agency and the country, season after season.
A still from Slow Horses
Gary Oldman gets down and dirty for one of the finest performances of his storied career. Kristin Scott Davis, Jonathan Pryce, Jack Lowden and others provide different versions of the straight man for Oldman to riff against. The direction is top notch with a single director at the helm for an entire season, ensuring the look and feel is consistent. The pace is fast with even the dialogues-heavy scenes leaving you excited all the while. Since all the seasons so far have been based on Mike Herron’s novels, the storylines are solid. But the best part is Slow Horses is fun. You cannot finish the six episodes in a season and not have a smile on your face.
I have said this repeatedly, no one does crime dramas better than the Brits. Well, it seems they are not too shabby in the spy circles either.
Bad Sisters: Black Comedy
Black comedy when done right can be the most fulfilling of comedies. It requires a grown-up audience with a specific mindset. The jokes are not always laugh-out-loud, but they tend to stay with you longer.
Bad Sisters, based on a Belgian series Clan, is about five close-knit sisters. One of them is married to JP, a manipulative abusive lizard of a man. The other four want to kill him and set out to make plans. As the series starts, we are at JP’s funeral. The death was ruled an accident, but two insurance agents don’t quite agree with it. And we already know the sisters. No way are we buying that!
Sharon Horgan, who developed the series with Dave Finkel and Brett Baer, leads the cast as the eldest sister Eva. She is ably supported by four other Irish actresses, one of who is Eve Hewson, who is Bono’s daughter. But the series belongs to Danish actor Claes Bang, who is delightfully wicked as JP. He makes sure you hate his character so much that you want to join the sisters in killing him. But then you realise how much fun he is having in the role and grin.
The first season of Bad Sisters should be compulsory teaching for anyone wanting to write black comedy. The second season struggles to keep up. Killing off another character in the first episode didn’t work this time round. Adding the great Fiona Shaw was a brilliant move. But her character could have been so much more. Unfortunately, some average writing let her down. It is still a good season, but the bar it was trying to reach was too high.
Murderbot: Science Fiction Comedy
Sometimes a performance can carry an entire series. Alexander Skarsgard is a robot. He proceeds to give us a masterclass in why humans should act as robots, and not rely on computer graphics.
In a future where humans skip between planets, a Security Unit – a robot who provides security for humans – has found a way to overcome its restrictions. It hacked the specs that prevented it from doing anything that was remotely dangerous to humans. It proceeded to rename itself Murderbot and then embarked on the most dangerous mission of all – binge-watching soap operas.
Murderbot was smart enough to act exactly as it should and not let the pesky humans know that it was a lot more powerful. The multi-planetary corporation that owned the robots insisted on one of them accompanying a group of researchers to a new planet. While spending time with these humans who believe in equality and humanism, Murderbot comes across strange aspects that it is not able to explain. It realizes that in order to protect its wards from the planet and its dangers, Murderbot has think like humans. Think?
The series never hit Apple’s top tier, which is a shame because this is solid sci-fi. The stories are good, the science is smart and accessible, the performances are quietly efficient. The cast is the most diverse I have seen in a series for a long time. The visual effects never overpower the storyline, but that doesn’t mean it is not good.
