Apple TV+ has a major hit on its hands with Jon Hamm‘s new series, Your Friends & Neighbors, and we definitely recommend that show as well (you can read our take below).
But if you haven’t been keeping up with Apple TV+’s library of shows, now is a great time to dig into some of the smart, subversive shows that are streaming on this platform.
From critically acclaimed comedies to dark mystery thrillers, Apple TV+ has it all.
This May, Watch With Us is recommending seven great Apple TV+ shows you don’t want to miss.
Jon Hamm is back to his handsome scoundrel ways in Your Friends & Neighbors. Hamm plays Andrew “Coop” Cooper, a hedge fund manager who stands to lose everything after being fired from his job. To keep afloat financially, Coop decides to start stealing from the wealthy members of his community. It’s Breaking Bad meets Desperate Housewives in a funny, well-acted series about the secret lives of the wealthy. Aimee Carrero (Young and Hungry) gives a particularly stellar performance as Coop’s partner in crime, Elena, and Amanda Peet is also excellent as his ex-wife.
Coop’s discoveries about his neighbors’ secrets keep piling up, and as he gets more entangled in their drama, he becomes increasingly disillusioned with the privileged world he once called home. Your Friends & Neighbors works on multiple levels: it’s a cutting social satire, a juicy soap and Hamm’s best showcase since Mad Men.
The Afterparty adds some much-needed variety to the murder mystery genre by incorporating spoofs of every other genre imaginable. Each episode of this comedy series is told from a different character’s perspective, and therefore resembles a different style of filmmaking. Whether it’s a film noir, a Wes Anderson indie to action flick, each episode tells the same story, but from a different point of view.
In the first season, a pop star (Dave Franco) is found dead at his high school reunion’s afterparty. Detective Danner (the very funny yet vulnerable Tiffany Haddish) interviews all suspects to put the pieces together and identify the killer. Aniq (Veep‘s Sam Richardson) finds himself a prime suspect and seeks to prove his innocence and win the heart of his high school crush Zoe (Zoe Chao).
Season 2 manages to pull off placing several of the same characters in the middle of a new mystery surprisingly well. The casts of both seasons are stacked with comedy greats, and the murder reveals are always unexpected. The Afterparty will be a party you won’t want to leave.
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the writers behind Superbad, Pineapple Express and many more hysterical Hollywood blockbusters, are now taking on Hollywood itself. In this new series, Rogen plays Matt Remick, the newly appointed head of Continental Studios. Matt tries to balance his passion for making fantastic art with the need to make billions of dollars for the company.
Rogen and Goldberg’s irreverent, no-holds-barred comedic style meets the glamour and excess of the entertainment industry in a show that’s as full of celebrity cameos as it is with F-bombs. Catherine O’Hara (Schitt’s Creek) plays Matt’s predecessor and mentor, while Kathryn Hahn (Agatha All Along) plays the studio’s blunt head of marketing.
If you miss the gone-too-soon sitcom Reboot, were a fan of Entourage, or are an obsessive re-watcher of BoJack Horseman, you don’t want to miss The Studio.
Funnily enough, the show that everyone seems to be talking about at the water cooler this year takes place in … an office. But it’s no ordinary office. In this darkly funny show, Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation) plays an employee at biotechnology corporation Lumon Industries. Scott’s character, and everyone else who works at Lumon, has undergone a medical procedure called “severance,” which separates one’s memories of life in the office from those of the outside world.
As a result, most of the characters have two distinct personalities: the “innie,” who exists only in the office, and the “outie” who interacts with the rest of the world. This system is soon revealed to be darker and more complex than any Lumon employee could have expected.
Fans love Severance for its smart critique of corporate culture, the thrilling mysteries that drive the story, and the thought-provoking questions it raises about the nature of identity.
The five Garvey sisters, who lost their parents at a young age and were raised by eldest daughter Eva (Sharon Horgan), are as tight-knit a group as can be. But as they watch their sister Grace (Anne-Marie Duff) become more and more withdrawn under the controlling influence of her abusive husband John Paul (Claes Bang), they fear they may lose her completely. Desperate to save Grace, and each with their own reasons for despising John Paul, the Garvey sisters team up to murder their brother-in-law.
Told in flashbacks, the dark comedy begins with John Paul’s funeral and slowly unravels the mystery of what actually killed him. At the same time, two insurance salesman brothers (Brian Gleeson and Daryl McCormack) hunt for signs of foul play in the hope that they won’t have to pay out John Paul’s life insurance policy.
Bad Sisters is a witty and moving portrayal of what we’ll do to protect family. And the shocking twist at the end of the first season invites the viewer to take a second look at who around them might need protecting.
Written by Bill Lawrence, the creator of Scrubs and Ted Lasso, and Brett Goldstein, who plays Roy Kent on the latter, comes another warm-hearted comedy guaranteed to bring a tear to your eye. Jason Segel plays Jimmy, a therapist who grieved the death of his beloved wife by drinking, doing drugs, and generally ignoring his teenage daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell). As Jimmy tries to put his life back together, he begins taking a radically different approach to his own therapy practice by getting deeply involved in his patients’ lives. He even invites one, a veteran with PTSD named Sean, (Luke Tennie), to move into his pool house.
Jimmy’s mentor Paul (a gruff-but-charming Harrison Ford), coworker Gaby (Jessica Williams), best friend Brian (Michael Urie) and nosy neighbor Liz (Christa Miller) all come together to form a community around Jimmy and Alice, and they’re all changed by the experience. The colorful cast has excellent chemistry and comedic timing, plus the dramatic chops to handle the sometimes heavy subject matter.
This one’s for the theater nerds. Keegan-Michael Key (Key & Peele) and Cecily Strong (Saturday Night Live) play two doctors, Josh and Melissa, who go on a couple’s camping trip to try to save their relationship. In a parody of the 1947 musical Brigadoon, they stumble upon a magical town called Schmigadoon, where life is a musical.
The first season of the musical comedy is full of references to classic Broadway standards of the ‘40s and ‘50s like Carousel and Oklahoma!. Season 2 relocates the cast to the city of “Schmicago” and sends up ‘60s and ‘70s musicals like Sweeney Todd and Cabaret. (If one era of show tunes is more to your taste than the other, each season would work just fine as a stand-alone.)
Kristin Chenoweth (Wicked), Alan Cumming (Cabaret), Aaron Tveit (Les Miserables), and Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) are just a few of the stars that show off their impressive pipes in this hilarious show. In addition to being funny, the songs will absolutely get stuck in your head. “Corn Puddin’,” anyone?
