Apple TV shows are all kind of mid, actually

Apple TV + is a most curious streaming service. As it approaches its five-year anniversary (they grow up so fast), Apple’s content decisions seem mind-boggling, mainly because the company’s strategy for its service amounts to throwing lots of money towards making pretty shows filled with pretty people.

These aesthetically-pleasing titles with big-named celebrities, all of which are accessed from one of the best operating systems available, belie an important aspect of Apple’s content. All these shows, save for a handful, are aggressively mediocre. The problem isn’t the average quality of these shows: it’s that Apple’s strategy is based around tricking us into thinking they’re much better than they are. Here’s how.

Apple TV+ is coasting on early hits

Cultivated an air of unearned prestige

Apple, like Disney+ and Netflix way back when, knew it had to have a couple of big hits with likable stars when it first launched in order to gain credibility. Disney showed off The Mandalorian, while Netflix had House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. Apple TV+ boasted The Morning Show, demonstrating it could get high-profile actors. While that first season of the Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon drama was compelling, with stories taken from current events, it has since mostly deviated into melodrama. For All Mankind showed audiences that it was willing to spend money on sci-fi stories, while later on, Ted Lasso, a folksy, easy watch, further gave the appearance of quality with its frequent award wins.

It wasn’t until 2022 that Apple really had a compelling hit on its hands with Severance, and it will be three years until its second season finally airs. If you have a handful of hits that pique the interest of viewers and garner a lot of attention online, it can create a lot of good will when you put forth other shows that are fine. That’s how it started.

Service emphasizes style over substance

Apple TV+ looks great, but that’s all

While there is certainly a place in TV for average fare, Apple is engaging in subterfuge. Netflix is more than willing to embrace its slew of titles, often starring any combination of Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne Johnson, or Mark Wahlberg, that are completely average and inconsequential.

Apple wants you to think its shows are bigger than they are, better than they are, and it’s certainly helped by the beauty of its OS. Fast and intuitive, Apple TV + is the most attractive streaming service, and does carousels and big panel showcases better than any other. The interface is attractive, the title cards are impressive, and the overall aesthetic makes me feel like the shows that are being advertised as just as compelling.

And when you start watching, you’ll see too that the shows look incredible. Most of them have a brilliant look that has a novel, prestige TV feel to them. Silo feels gritty and cold, and its expert use of lighting makes it feel as if you are indeed stuck in an underground bunker. Monarch, meanwhile, is big and expansive, with colorful locations around the world that underscore the immensity of the monsters in the story. The shows are slick and are spot-on in evoking the energy of the time and place. Instead of filling these shows with something engaging, however, Apple doubles down on being eye-catching with its casting.

Apple embraces big names and pretty faces

A-list stars shine in easy roles

The main part of Apple’s strategy is to create shows and movies around iconic, attractive celebrities that remind you of other, better work they have done. In these shows, the star in question plays a familiar version of themselves. Apple doesn’t have IP to mine from, so they create nostalgia differently, by putting these popular stars in situations that sort of evoke what they’re best known for.

Apple’s latest offerings are pretty damning. Matt Damon and Casey Affleck play two Boston ne’er-do-wells who get caught up on the wrong side of the law in the comedy thriller, The Instigators. Brad Pitt and George Clooney play charming fixers who are forced to work together on a job in the action comedy Wolfs. These roles do not require range.

In Sugar, Colin Farrell is a mysterious, handsome PI struggling with his own demons (he’s definitely not covering up his face or body for Apple TV like he is for HBO). In Hijack, Idris Elba is a cunning negotiator who commands attention. In Shining Girls, Elizabeth Moss is a once-victim who finds the power and will to seek justice against the person who wronged her. And in Bad Monkey, someone basically thought it would be fun to see Vince Vaughn work with a monkey.

Michael Douglas played the President in a movie, let’s make him Benjamin Franklin. Kristen Wiig is great at being awkward and Maya Rudolph excels as eccentric, self-centered characters, so let’s give them these roles in two different shows, but let’s always put them next to each other in carousels so they can vibe off each other. Apple toward these celebrities, we’re playing to your strengths and making sure you don’t need to spend a lot of time in wardrobe.

Wandering stories and pointless arcs

Apple TV+ shows lose the plot

Apple

So, you see a shiny interface with eye-catching posters, and you notice a lot of familiar faces on these title cards, so you start watching. Apple TV+ shows are interesting for an episode or two, but they tend to fall off the wheels soon after. I can’t be certain, but I have to imagine Apple has a bunch of shows where there is a significant audience drop off as you move towards the finale. And that’s because, a lot of these shows don’t have much to say. But they just might be good enough for you to say, “let’s give it one more episode.”

Take Silo. Great production, stellar actors, and a terrific premise give way to a very slow, meandering story that does well to hide the fact that it isn’t going to reveal anything important anytime soon. Another sci-fi show, Dark Matter, has the same positives going for it and doesn’t know what to do with all that promise. Monarch, meanwhile, is a show without any purpose other than to show off its very talented and attractive human stars and, of course, a bunch of kaiju. It is a fun show with absolutely no point and no reason for existence.

Indeed, there is some quality content. Severance was riveting, Pachinko is ambitious and creative, and Slow Horses succeeds on the shoulders of Gary Oldman and a story that actually has twists and turns. But these are outliers, and Apple TV+ can’t keep masquerading as a prestigious, streaming service full of hidden gems when it’s really just like all the others: mostly mediocre.