- Apple TV+ is trying to make a foray into the overcrowded streaming service market with a few new shows and a lower price point. Unfortunately for them, it won’t be enough to grab people’s attention.

Full Disclosure: I went in fully intending to only sign up for the free subscription and then cancel once the week was up. There are already too many standalone subscription services these days, and with the big new bully on the block, Disney+, starting this week, there frankly isn’t enough room in my life for Apple TV+. With that said, I thought I’d take a look and see if it might be something worth squeezing in sometime in the future.

Review

Apple TV+ is trying to elbow its way into the same marketplace that includes other big tech and entertainment giants Netflix, Amazon and Disney, not to mention premium cable like HBO and Showtime, network services like CBS All Access, and whatever the hell YouTube Premium looks like these days after the death of YouTube Red. The people at Apple obviously recognize their inherent disadvantage, and have set their price point to be the lowest of all of the services (at $4.99 US, $5.99 in Canada).

That price might be attractive if they actually had more to offer. The first thing that jumps out about Apple TV+ is just how few titles they have compared to their competitors. They launched with only 4 series that are aimed at people with a reasonable chance of obtaining a driver’s licence. That might be fine if those shows standouts ready to grab the public’s attention. People paid for HBO subscriptions solely to watch “Game of Thrones”. People likely will pay for Disney+ just to watch “The Mandalorian”. Unfortunately, none of Apple TV+’s shows rise to that level.

By far the best series is the Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carrell-starring “The Morning Show”. It’s a well-written and tremendously-acted drama that manages to make use of current political issues such as the “Me Too” Movement as important plot points in its stories, rather than as a crutch for character development and effective storytelling. It’s political without being preachy, and complex without being meandering. It’s really the only one of the Apple+ offerings that I’m interested in continuing to watch.

Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon are both great in the only show worth watching so far on Apple TV+.

I imagine that Apple TV+ must have had high hopes for the Jason Momoa-starring “See”, about a post-apocalyptic world where everyone has been without sight for centuries until the birth of twins who can see sets in motion radical changes and threats to the new world that’s been built. I’m guessing they thought it might become a Game of Thrones-lite show, with the feel of Children of Men. Unfortunately, while it starts with an intriguing premise, it never really seems to rise to the level of being interesting. Part of the problem is that Momoa’s character is meant to be the lead, but is just incredible dull.

For those hoping that Jason Momoa is launching a new series that will be at all comparable to a certain HBO show in which he started with a prominent role, you’ll be sadly disappointed.

“For All Mankind” is an alternate-history series that posits the question, “what if the Russians landed a man on the moon first?” I’ll admit that I only watched the first episode, but the answer to the question seems to be that NASA scientists would just spend a few months moping around and then eventually land the Apollo 11 crew on the moon anyway. Not a very exciting take on the alternate history genre, where we’re expecting larger consequences and radical changes from the world as we know it.

The other new offering is “Dickinson”, starring Hailee Steinfeld, trying to play Emily Dickinson as sassy and cool. It’s yet another of these shows that tries to make historical figures appeal to the YA literature crowd, and like many of the others, it doesn’t quite work. It never really gets the tone right, and I also have serious questions about whether it even makes sense to try to make a dramatic series about the life of someone who was essentially a shut-in and sat around writing poems in her father’s house for her whole life.

The rest of the new series are aimed at kids, including “Ghostwriter”. Or, at least I had thought it was made for kids, but apparently it’s actually aimed at people without a functioning frontal lobe. It was so bad that I had to turn it off after 10 minutes.

I’m not going to comment on how well the streaming service functions technically, as I’m aware that there are many different ways that subscribers can access Apple TV+. I use my AppleTV, and as you might expect, the actual usage of the service was smooth and easy. I have no complaints there at all.

Look! It’s Hailee Steinfeld playing a sassy and attractive version of a historical figure! That’s gotta appeal to the YA crowd, right?

Final Verdict

I realize that Apple TV+ has more content on the way. They have a number of new series and movies slated to arrive over the next couple of months. Maybe at some point in the future it’ll be worthwhile taking another look at Apple+ once they have more to offer. At the moment, though, I can’t recommend paying for the few titles they have in an already overcrowded streaming service marketplace. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to switch over the Disney+ and watch “The Mandalorian”.