Since the streaming wars began, each service took on their own flavour.
HBO - generally decent, prestige television, but has less “content” than other services
Netflix - Quantity over Quality, you get gems sometimes, but also a lot of junk to sort through
Disney+ - A lot of good legacy content and very hit and miss with marvel/disney IPs, fans are willing to complain/ hate watch
So here’s the thing with Apple TV, I didn’t subscribe to it, I bought an apple product and got 3 months free, and the discourse is either love it or just silence. No one seems to ‘hate’ the shows.
The Good - Ted Lasso, Severance were the ones I really enjoyed, Ted Lasso felt genuine, especially with the British sensibilities and I will compare this to Shrinking later, Severance was good and hopefully doesn’t have the mystery box problems
The Mid - Shrinking is from Bill Lawrence who created one of my favourite shows Scrubs, but it’s just super boring, I finished Netflix’s Man on the Inside in a single sitting but couldnt continue Shrinking, compared to Ted Lasso, it also feels fake nice, fake chill.
The Ugly - Foundation is probably one of the worst written sci fi on television now. People hated on ST: Picard very vocally and for Foundation I only found a couple of youtube videos on how bad S1 is.
It’s bad in a way that is not really related to the books, but having the name makes it slightly worse. The writing is basically equivalent to one of the bad Doctor Who episodes but with 10x the budget. You get occasional bursts of brilliance which basically comes out of Asimov’s ideas. However, its extremely hard to point this out and TV fans will defend this, this is not the case with SW shows on Disney plus where people understand the difference between fan service and bad writing. It’s pretty hard to find an opinion on Apple TV shows that says “It’s OK, I didn’t like it” which happens so frequently on Netflix.
I’m not sure why thats the reason, just my observation and wondering if you guys have any opinions on this phenomenon
I haven’t read the books so my Foundation experience is exclusively from the show, which I really enjoy. Here are some I’m unhappy with.
Big Door Prize: Interesting premise, strung along and did NOT get enough from the S01 finale, and I refuse to watch the second season.
Changeling: GREAT vibes but the end of the season did not deliver, and people who read the book said the season showed most of the book but omitted the last bit. That made me pretty angry and I will not bother with another season.
Constellation: Interesting premise kind of ruined by a stretched-out plot, bad writing, and a poor performance from some of the cast. Could not be motivated to watch another season.
Invasion: I fucking hate this show. It’s written by people with teenage brain logic, it’s acted by people who are giving student film effort at best, but it’s shot beautifully, which, for Apple, always covers a multitude of sins.
What I love: Silo is so fun. I ended up reading all the books before the second season premiered. For all Mankind is entertaining if not a bit soapy. Alt history is interesting, although sometimes bittersweet when it comes to the subject of the space race. Monarch is also fun if you just want some Godzilla/monster action content. Also it has Anna Sawai, who killed it in Shōgun (FX).