The Best Apple TV Plus Shows of 2023

It’s been four years since Apple TV Plus launched, but the network still feels like it punches above its weight. It doesn’t have the vast library of its competitors, but the shows (and occasionally movies) it does have are generally very, very good.

I’ve heard friends compare it to HBO in the 2000s, and it feels like it’s an apt comparison.There are a lot of great movies out there, but there’s also a well-crafted set of TV shows that seem to appeal to a very broad audience, including hardcore sci-fi shows like for all mankind and Base to it’s weirder fair Schmigadu! and Morning show.

Apple TV Plus has found a way to appeal to a broad audience with a handful of big-budget and highly entertaining shows.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

This will help if you’re already a fan of the legendary shared universe of giant monsters, but monarch You really don’t have to.The series is based in the same universe as the 2014 series Godzilla and its many sequels, but unlike those films, here you actually care about the characters. It’s a prequel set between the 1950s and 2015, chronicling generations of the same family as they explore a world of giant monsters that might pose a threat to Earth or its saviors. You might be distracted by the brilliant stunt casting of Kurt Russell and his son Wyatt Russell playing the same character at different times, but you’ll stay for the monsters and the rest.

Produced by and starring Brie Larson, the show is based on the novel of the same name and is equally heartfelt, inspiring, and occasionally devastating. Larson plays Elizabeth Zotte, a talented chemist trying to make it as a single career woman in the late 1950s. After a series of devastating losses, she bounced back, launched a science-based cooking show, and became a star. I don’t want to spoil anything, but this show is the type of romantic drama we desperately need more of from Hollywood.

This sci-fi drama created by Ron D. Moore is one of the longest-running shows on Apple TV Plus, and for good reason. It’s really that good. While it started out as an alternate history show that pondered what would have happened if the Soviets landed on the moon first, it has now become one of the best science fiction shows on television. Season four feels particularly prescient. It explores the concept of commercially driven space exploration, set in the early 2000s. There was widespread discussion about the rights of billionaires, labor organizing and how NASA might function in a world where the biggest and best rockets are built by private companies.

This is another show based on a book, but instead of being a story about women surviving a debilitating patriarchy in the 1950s, it’s about women surviving a future dystopia. A suspenseful thriller set underground where most of us can’t go, it uses its unique and unsettling setting to ratchet up the tension even as it explores how a small community comes together in an apocalyptic world together.

This show about friends in their 40s reconnecting is basically Thirties For Millennials. Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen have incredible chemistry as platonic best friends, whose relationship is so intimate and tumultuous that it warps those around them. Oddly enough, its first season ended in a super satisfying way, so it’s surprising to see it return for a second season. But if it’s as cathartic as the first season, I certainly wouldn’t object.

This strange homage to a Broadway musical has always flown under the radar—probably because of its premise. It tells the story of a couple (played by Keegan-Michael Key and Cecily Strong) who find themselves in a world based on a musical. In the first season, these were musicals from the ’40s and ’50s. In season two, the musicals are from the ’60s and ’70s.Between the more complex themes of the source material and my own love of the Fox era chicago, I admit I find myself enjoying this season more. So much so that I even have friends who are openly anti-music watching and enjoying it. If you know a thing or two about musicals but find their overall conceit horrifying, give this season a try (you can skip right to it!). It manages to mock its source material while also praising it, and you’ll have a really good time.

Apple TV Plus’s most popular show is also one of its most confusing – it’s never quite sure if it’s a drama or a melodrama. Thankfully, in season three, morning show is finally finding its feet… becoming one of the most compelling soap operas on television right now. The plot is weird, and that’s the point. Every emotion expressed in this show is cranked up to 11, and you’ll find yourself giggling as they try to make you believe that Reese Witherspoon just exploded in a rocket. But the show works because it’s filled with incredibly talented and charismatic actors. Just like soap operas of the past, you find that you don’t mind the silliness because you’re mostly eager to spend time with all these familiar faces.

But I will point out that the show had one truly great moment this season: Nicole Beharie’s character confronting Holland Taylor about institutional racism on the network. Beharie was famously blacklisted from Hollywood after a confrontation on set. Sleepy Hollow and the design of that moment morning show Reflecting the real life of the actress in a way that is both cathartic and meta.

Season 1 Invasion Progress is slow and the aliens show up very late in the season. Season 2 doesn’t have any of these issues, instead keeping a tight rein on its sprawling story. A soldier worries about people being kept in the dark about the invasion, a mother tries to keep her child safe who was touched by aliens, a group of kids try to find their friends in a world ravaged by aliens, and finally, there’s a The story follows a guilt-ridden woman who tries to communicate with aliens but doesn’t want to lose herself in the process. Season 2 ended on a bigger cliffhanger than Season 1, and the show has not yet been renewed. But if you’ve been looking for an alien invasion story that never forgets why humans deserve to survive, this is well worth your time.

You may start watching Base Because you are a big fan of science fiction. Who wouldn’t want to watch a big-budget series based on the works of Isaac Asimov, one of the fathers of American science fiction literature? You’ll stick around because Lee Pace is really, really good as the God-Emperor clone.