The Bewildering Success of Apple TV+

The best movie and the best T.V. show of 2020 both came from the strangest place: Apple TV+ -the competitive streaming service that launched back in 2019 by Apple that everyone agreed was a joke. Granted, most streaming services outside of maybe the Big Five: Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max have been viewed as a joke on initial launch. I mean does anybody who doesn’t watch Star Trek know that CBS All Access exists? Did you know that NBC’s Peacock is still out there? In researching I only just discovered Paramount+ (they’ve got stuff like The Good Wife and Blue Bloods), and I still remember the brief period when Yahoo! Screen was a thing -a streaming service that produced the sixth season of Community and nothing else of note. But of course the king of mockable streaming services is Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi -which launched and died in less than a year because its’ central concept was so incredibly stupid. Already people are forgetting it ever existed.

This was the company that Apple TV+ was in until quite recently. Just another multi-million dollar corporation trying to get in on the streaming game. Cynical, needless, boring. All I’d heard about it at the start of 2020 was that it was the home of some series about a morning news show starring Steve Carrell and Jennifer Aniston that wasn’t getting good reviews. It was only a matter of time before it fell apart.

But it didn’t. The next I heard of the platform was when I discovered it was going to be the principal international distributor of the upcoming Cartoon Saloon film Wolfwalkers that I was so excited for. I knew then that like it or not, I was going to have to sign up for the damn thing even if just for a trial period, so I could watch this latest masterpiece from my favourite animation studio. But it wasn’t before long then that a few other things on this new platform caught my eye.

The first was Mythic Quest, and as a long-time fan of sitcoms and someone who’s noticed an under-representation in popular media of the world of video games and video game culture (just consider how many shows or movies have been made about making shows or movies), I was pretty intrigued. Even more-so by the cast, which was led by Rob McElhenney, who co-created it with his It’s Always Sunny colleagues Charlie Day and Megan Ganz -Ganz who back in the day was a favourite writer on Community. And Community’s own Danny Pudi, who I always enjoy seeing, was on this show as well. Most shocking though, and the main reason I endeavored to seek it out, was F. Murray Abraham of all people as this shows’ elder statesman cast member -every sitcom has one. The prospect of seeing one of my favourite actors play so vividly against type wasn’t something I could in any way pass up.

And it is a strong show, stronger than I anticipated for the second series of an already successful sitcom star. It’s set in the offices of a World of Warcraft/Skyrim-esque fantasy MMORPG called Mythic Quest, created by the egotistical Ian (pronounced I-an) Grimm (McElhenney), its’ creative director. The show follows Ian as well as engineer Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao) -essentially the series’ co-lead, running an office that includes finicky producer David (David Hornsby), soulless monetization manager Brad (Pudi), game tester Rachel (Ashly Burch) and her crush Dana (Imani Hakim), sociopathic floating assistant Jo (Jessie Ennis), and the washed-up Nebula-winning head writer C.W. Longbottom (Abraham). It’s a really stellar ensemble; I’m impressed by the way McElhenney and Pudi, both known for very specific characters, play such great antitheses to the likes of Mac and Abed, and do so with exceptional believability. But its’ the women, most of whom I’d never heard of, who steal the show -particularly the brilliant and funny Nicdao, without whom Mythic Quest does not work. Burch and Hakim are utterly adorable, while Ennis is a fantastic burst of madness: a conniving, ruthless hard-right fireball -the last person you’d want to see behind the scenes at a video game company.

Surprisingly the series does go there, unafraid to address the toxicity persistent in video game culture. There’s a whole episode dedicated to dealing with an influx of white supremacists playing the game for example. It knows or at least seems to know the inner workings of its subject matter too, satirizing changing demographics by the need to appeal to a few dozen or so teenage influencers. Poppy goes to a convention for essential networking purposes where she is scouted by a competitor played by famed voice actor (and in many video games) John DiMaggio. The series understands who its’ playing to, but even if you’re not a gamer, it resonates as a distinctly modern take on the office sitcom. I also like that three of its’ cast-members (McElhenney, Hornsby, and Burch) are writers as well -and the show has a nicely progressive outlook for being set in an industry so often beset by conservative rhetoric.

In demonstration of its’ dedication to breaking down and exploring the deeper nuances of the video game sphere, the best episode of the show, “A Dark Quiet Death” completely abandons its’ central cast for the story of the rise and fall of an indie game built by a couple, Jake Johnson and Cristin Milioti. It is an amazing, tragic piece of television that reveals better than any media I’ve seen the human element behind these massive franchises and how the former is devastatingly impacted by the latter. The series also became known last year for its’ COVID episode simply titled “Quarantine” that was written, produced, and shot entirely remotely, and structured around a series of zoom calls. It’s a fascinating process that got it made, whereby everybody had to be their own director, and involving a lot of iphones generously provided by Apple (and the cute story of how Abraham had to be taught how to use one), but what made it special was how authentically it tapped into everyone’s feeling of hopeless isolation last May. The episode’s climax involving Nicdao in maybe her best performance yet will make you cry. The most on-point illustration of living through such an unprecedented moment in time and it came courtesy of Apple.

Apple TV+ has almost nothing in the way of a library to pull from. In May of 2020 they acquired the streaming rights to Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock, and in October rather controversially, the catalogue of Peanuts specials including perennial classics A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! But otherwise the service is predominated by original shows and movies, or new shows and movies they’ve bought exclusive streaming rights to, such as Wolfwalkers, On the Rocks, and Greyhound. Scrolling through Apple TV+ doesn’t take very long. But there is something to be said for it putting its’ resources into a select group of series. Netflix shows get easily lost in their relentless production cycle of content, it’s hard to remember when it was just House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. Those shows perhaps had stronger reputations for the lack of competition on the platform, and of course the platform’s capacity to promote them seriously. Likewise, while Apple may not have a lot of shows, it’s got shows that are making an impression; shows that are made by strong and creative voices, and that are finding their audience. 

For All Mankind is one of those shows, from Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica scribe Ronald D. Moore, that reimagines the space race persisting into the twenty-first century after the Soviets beat America to the moon. For an alternate history series, it has gotten a lot of great reviews from critics such as Emily VanDerWerff and Alan Sepinwall, especially in its’ second season. And then there’s something like Alena Smith’s Dickinson, which approaches the life of reclusive poet Emily Dickinson with the sensibility of a twenty-first century YA drama, contending with the social constraints of class, gender, and sexuality through a sardonic contemporary lens. The series stars a long undervalued Hailee Steinfeld finally getting her due, and each episode is inspired by a Dickinson poem. In its’ first season the show won a Peabody award.

But of course on Apple TV+ there is one show that stands high above the rest in recognition and acclaim –this streamer’s equivalent to a House of Cards or Stranger Things, and the only show on the platform the average person has likely heard of. When I signed up for the free week trial to watch Wolfwalkers around Christmas last year, I remembered some talk from the summer about this show Ted Lasso. I’m not much into sports media, so it wasn’t imminently interesting to me –I figured its’ acclaim might be of a kind I get but don’t quite feel, like Moneyball or Friday Night Lights. But I decided to give it a shot anyways, maybe due to its’ fish-out-of-water premise, maybe out of nostalgia for Jason Sudeikis-era SNL, or maybe just because it was British. Whatever the cause, it charmed me pretty quickly, and by the halfway point of season one I was singing its’ praises alongside everyone else.

Ted Lasso is just about the nicest show that has been made in my lifetime. Nothing less than a celebration of the value of kindness, support, and optimism in a world so overrun with meanness and negativity. On its’ surface its’ premise is simple to the point of being downright cliché. After winning ownership of a middling English football club AFC Richmond in her divorce settlement, Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) hires folksy American college football coach Ted Lasso (Sudeikis) as the teams’ new manager. It’s an act of vengeful sabotage designed to destroy the only thing her asshole ex-husband cared about. Only, Ted Lasso turns out to be a perpetually upbeat and radiant force of sheer goodwill, who not only takes in stride every obstacle thrown at him by a persistently aggressive and toxic sports culture, but gradually brings out the best in everyone he interacts with. This includes hotshot star player Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster), angry, antagonistic veteran Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein), and even Rebecca herself. Others in his periphery include operations director Higgins (Jeremy Swift), former equipment manager-turned Ted’s protégé Nathan (Nick Mohammed), Ted’s American Assistant Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt), and Jamie’s girlfriend Keeley (Juno Temple).

The series was created by Sudeikis and Hunt alongside Scrubs’ Bill Lawrence and Joe Kelly, based on an ad campaign from several years earlier of NBC’s coverage of Premier League. But aside from a couple recycled jokes, the two iterations are nothing alike. Ted is a bit more of a typical American buffoon in the commercials, less genial and less open. Repositioning the comedy around a character without entitlement or ego, who is curious about this new world and his role in it rather than baffled, was an incredibly smart choice that gives the series its’ distinction. It certainly stands in contrast to any British comedy show, from which world it nabs a lot of talent, where the centre of focus must always be on some level a dick. But even then, the inspiring sports story centred on a coach has been done so many times, what exactly is it that sets Ted Lasso apart?

Well, one thing for sure is that it’s not really a show about football, which appealed to me a great deal. We don’t see much gameplay, only sporadic scenes of practice, and aside from a handful of players, the team itself isn’t even showcased all that heavily. Ted Lasso is more about its’ characters than its’ game, and the various ways that they can grow. It’s about such sappy things as believing in yourself and making the best of emotionally complex situations. Though Ted specifically, and Jason Sudeikis’ effortlessly charming performance, is the key to it all -I admire how well the show builds him. You can’t really get an angle on him at first, he’s either naive or putting on an affect, and it might even be a bit annoying. He’s almost a cartoon in his wholesomeness amid this world that is otherwise grounded, and you’re in the position of his players, unable to take him seriously. But as the episodes go on, you buy more into his genuineness and see the virtue in it -before too long you see him as this force for good in the world, wanting nothing more than to make people happy and unlock their potential. He is a live-action Paddington!

And yet the show doesn’t neglect him any nuance. He’s going through some shit: an amicable but emotionally fraught divorce, the pressures that come from the new job. He suffers a panic attack, he briefly loses his patience with Nathan -it’s disconcerting, but it reminds us he’s not immaculate or invulnerable. In fact it sets him as a greater model to know he’s relatable. He’s got a high standard he holds himself to as well as the people on his team -the first season hints at its’ capacity to break, the second seems intent on pursuing it. But though it may be difficult to maintain, the rewards of his attitude and spirit are too great. The best scene of the show, which solidified to me that it was the best of the year and perhaps one of the new greats, was that darts game in episode eight between Ted and Rebecca’s vindictive ex Rupert (Anthony Head). It’s honestly a perfect scene and if you haven’t watched it yet I expect it will brighten your day.

Sudeikis dominates the series, but the rest of cast are pretty strong too. Waddingham does such a nice job turning a villain into a multi-dimensional character with emotionally resonant reasons for her great scheme. Goldstein brings a lot of complexity to a character whose demeanour suggests none, making a thuggish footballer into one of the most lovable characters on the show. And Temple is equally lovable as she demolishes stereotypes and brings a sense of joy to each scene she’s in (she may be the only one with faith in Ted from the get-go) -it might be Temple’s best performance. The show is as interested in them as it is in Ted, and though they don’t all fit into each others’ storylines, they do feel like a solid unit. And much like on Mythic Quest, I attribute this in part to three of the cast members (Sudeikis, Goldstein, and Hunt) being writers as well.

More than anything else, Ted Lasso is what has catapulted recognition of Apple TV+, their first show to get such wide acclaim and rack up awards -and all of it deserved.  Between it and Wolfwalkers, my estimation of this platform changed dramatically during that week I had it free. Of course not everything they produce lives up to such high standards. Many shows make nary a blip in terms of cultural conversation, and their original movies so far with the notable exception of Wolfwalkers, haven’t tended to be great. Cherry is not a good model for the platform going forward. But I think Apple TV+ is making some smart choices. Obviously at the end of the day it is just another streaming service designed to prop up a brand, and even without a catalogue it’s not all that unique –it’s shows wouldn’t be out of place on Netflix or Amazon Prime; it’s no Criterion Channel or Mubi or Kanopy in terms of unique content or breadth of choice. But it is fascinating given how quickly it has taken off compared to its’ counterparts –many of which have much fuller libraries.

And there are interesting things new and on the horizon. Season two of Mythic Quest might be better than season one as it evolves the creative dynamic between Ian and Poppy, the relationship between Rachel and Dana, and even gives C.W. a couple great episodes after having to sideline him most of the season due to Abraham’s higher risk for COVID (he delivers astonishingly in the episode “Peter”). And the second season of Ted Lasso so far has been making some compelling choices too, likewise expanding its’ scope for its’ ensemble. Lawrence has said that the show has a conclusion in place with its’ third season, which gives me hope they know what they’re doing. Part of the Ted Lasso wave came perhaps from its’ release in the middle of the pandemic lockdown –it’s warmth and optimism was a catharsis many of us craved. But it’s good to see that outside of those circumstances it can be just as good, with many who have seen the full season declaring it even greater than the first -I might already be inclined to agree, the Christmas episode is just pure loveliness from start to finish! Additionally, coming up they’re releasing a filmed production of Come From Away, the Isaac Asimov adaptation Foundation, Joel Coen’s Macbeth, Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, new movies from Josephine Decker, Antoine Fuqua, Sebastián Lelio, and Ridley Scott, and a brand new news satire show with Jon Stewart!

I didn’t keep that Apple TV+ subscription. The service has its’ share of technical flaws (not being able to cast from a device unless you own an Apple TV being chief among them), but I have thought about going back a number of times over the months. It’s a relatively cheaper subscription (though I wonder for how long), and I’m more confident now there are other series on there that are quite good that I didn’t come across. In any case it’s worth the free trial just to binge the really good stuff –Wolfwalkers a few times notwithstanding. In a time where there are way too many mediocre streaming options, Apple TV+ has swiftly proven to be one of the few well worth keeping an eye on.

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