AppleTV+ Top Shows

Let’s hate a bit on Apple first, to get it out of the way

In general, I’m not a huge fan of Apple. I’m an Android/Samsung user myself, so I’m supposed to hate on Apple. Right? Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be? That’s what I was thought. We are the good guys, Apple represents the dark side. Something like that.

Even though their designs are gracious, their GUIs are revolutionary intuitive, they do still suck, right? Their over-priced devices, resulted in an accumulation of money, that could buy up the entire world. Their pockets are so deep, that they could single-handedly solve world poverty. If they wanted to, or if there was any profit in it for them, I should say. Having very deep pockets, brings a lot of things. Money is the only resource that really matters in the end.

As most of you know, Apple has their own live-streaming service, AppleTV+. Now, take that fact, and add their accumulated wealth to the equation, and you get a live-streaming service, with an unlimited budget. You might expect that this is a formula for success, right? Right! Well, yeah, right! I recently came to the conclusion, that Apple TV, is the number one live-streaming service out there, when it comes to creating good content, at the moment of writing this. Now, don’t get me wrong here, I haven’t suddenly started loving Apple. I just hate them a bit less. Netflix should definitely step up their game, or else they’re going to lose the race for world domination.

I’ve never paid a cent for Apple TV, mostly because I’m always broke as fuck. But also, I’m a big believer in internet piracy. Hell, I’ll even admit it right here. I’m a pirate! So, sue me! Forget that. Do Not Sue me!! Ah heck, sue me! See if I care. We have a saying in the Netherlands that goes something like this: You can not pluck any feathers from a chicken that has already been plucked. I believe this is one of the rare cases where a saying actually holds up after translation. Anyways, There’s nothing to sue here! Please move along.

What happened?

I was watching an episode of The Daily Show, and the guest of the evening was Jason Segal. The conversation made me curious about a TV-show that Jason was promoting, named Shrinking. I searched for it, and learned that it wasn’t available on Netflix, Prime, or whatever other service I’m already subscribed to that I’m forgetting now. So, I did what any other normal person would do. I downloaded season 1 from one of my favorite torrent sites. Remember those? Torrents? They’re still out there! Very useful! Long live the internet.

Shrinking (8.0 IMDb)

I was happy that with Shrinking, I found something new to watch, that actually surprised me, in a good way. I really enjoyed it to be honest, even though I’ve never been a huge fan of Jason, I did enjoy seeing him in this show. More mature or something. I was especially pleased to see Jessica Williams in such a fun character role, after having parted from working on The Daily Show. It did take some getting used to seeing Harrison Ford in this format, but that’s not surprising, since I’m from the generation that grew up with the Indiana Jones films. It’s a lighthearted show, silly, funny, and sweet. I recommend this show to everyone. In fact, I did recommend it to everyone willing to listen to my recommendations. Once I finished watching this show, I did a quick internet search using this query: Apple TV top 100 best series. This brought me from Shrinking to The Morning Show.

The Morning Show (8.2 IMDb)

The TV-show, called The Morning Show, blew my socks off. I expected this show to be a comedy after I saw a list of all the actors. To my surprise, it wasn’t, or well, not at first. Later I found there to be humor in it, but not in the conventional way. I binge-watched the shit out of it, and I mean really hard. I’ve lost some sleep over it, but, totally worth it!

The show is a mixture of Mad Men, The Good Wife, and As The World Turns, in my opinion. I added As The World Turns to this list because it felt a bit soapie, by lack of better words. But not in a bad way, so nothing like As The World Turns. It’s a high-octane paced show, with lots of drama, intrigues, and scandals. Very character driven, very suspenseful. It had me on the edge of my seat starting somewhere halfway season one. The first half of the season is basically a set-up for when things go wild later on. Season two shows that things can go even wilder, and in season three, things become batshit crazy wild, it had me jump out from my seat at times.

The acting in this show is magnificent. The soundtracks are amazingly well picked. The writing is off the wall. Basically, it’s freaking great! I recommended this show to my friends more than once, up to the point it drove them crazy. I was even sent a photograph proving to me that they added the show to their watch list, just so I would shut up talking about this show. After completing season three, I performed the same internet-search I did earlier, and this brought me to Ted Lasso.

Ted Lasso (8.8 IMDb)

I’m so grateful that I found the TV-show named Ted Lasso! Especially after having just finished watching The Morning Show. It was a matter of perfect timing, because I was still coming down from TMS. My god, TMS was such a rush, but I needed my blood pressure to lower again to acceptable levels. So, I wanted something different now, perhaps less American? Something British would be good, as it usually is good. Perhaps a mixture of the two? I was also looking for some solid, good humor. Ted Lasso came to the rescue. What a great, great, great show this is! I’m pretty upset that I just finished the last season earlier today, because I’m going to miss the characters from this show very much. It made me laugh, a lot! It made me cry, at the very end. But then again, I am soft to the core, so maybe that says more about me. Where The Morning Show has kinda of a negative tone to it, Ted Lasso is nothing but positivity. And love. Actress Hannah Waddingham has a new, big fan with me, I loved her. Here’s a review from IMDb, that puts it in to words perfectly.

Ted Lasso is the best show that I have seen in a very long time. I never like it when a good thing ends, but the fact that they actually wrapped up the story in the end, is really nice. The Ted Lasso show is a piece of art, that you can see as a gift from above, that will make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. The cast is so good that I wanted to blog about it. And that’s how I ended up with this entire blog post that got a little out of hand. I’ve been bothering my friends with my recommendations more than enough (for the time being), so hopefully, for their sake, they’ll read this blog post and watch this show, because everybody can use a bit of Ted Lasso. Especially nowadays. One does not simply not like Ted Lasso. And remember: Fûtbal is life!

Masters of the Air (7.8 IMDb)

I’ve seen Masters of the Air a couple of months ago. I downloaded it as soon as I learned of its existence, because I have a fascination for all that has to do with WWII. This show was produced by a large portion of the people behind Band of Brothers. So for that reason alone it is obviously worth watching. I wanted to include it in this list of good shows, because it is exactly that. I’m pretty sure I’ll be re-watching this series at some point.

Although not as good as Band of Brothers, but that’s not surprising, as it is close to impossible to create anything better, it is a very interesting and good TV-show that depicts the war from an interesting perspective. A bird-eye perspective, in fact.

Le Music

One thing that I really noticed in all the mentioned shows was that the soundtracks of each and every episode was so incredibly good. I bet a fair portion of the budgets were spent on them. Although, come to think of it, Apple probably owns many of the licenses that allow them to use “expensive” music in their TV-shows, due to I-Tunes. I don’t like it at all, that I have to conclude, that being an international corporation that is larger than life, does have its benefits when you’re running a live-streaming service. Kudos Apple! Great job. Now if I could please go back to hating them again, that would be nice. Thank you.

What’s next?

I’m going to stick with AppleTV’s content for now. But I won’t be subscribing to it just yet. I need some more confirmation that their content is the best. So I made a list of stuff that I already downloaded and want to watch before I switch to the dark side. This is what is on my “To Watch List”:

I’ve watched the first three episodes of this show. One thing that makes this show good already is the cinematic. Every single shot is like candy for the eyes. I’m getting into the story, and it seems very, very promising. It’s multilayered, and raises questions. Very interesting. I’m looking forward to continuing watching it.

So what?

What do you mean so what? Go and watch all this shit! Now! You’re welcome by the way.