--- title: The Best Shows on Apple TV+—And the Worst description: Your guide to the new streaming service: what to watch, what to skip and everything in between. canonical: https://time.com/5710943/apple-tv-plus-what-to-watch/ author: Judy Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-10-28T13:15:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T07:38:48.472Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: What to Watch—And What to Skip—On Apple TV+ og:description: A pocket guide to the streaming service that debuts Nov. 1. og:url: https://time.com/5710943/apple-tv-plus-what-to-watch/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What to Watch—And What to Skip—On Apple TV+ twitter:description: A pocket guide to the streaming service that debuts Nov. 1. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # What to Watch—and What to Skip—on Apple TV+ ## Video: SEE – Official Trailer - Apple TV [Watch (HLS stream): SEE – Official Trailer - Apple TV](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/OEX2i8iM.m3u8) (2:38)  _Published 2019-10-25. SEE – Official Trailer - Apple TV_  by [Judy Berman](https://time.com/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic Oct 28, 2019 1:15 PM UTC  by [Judy Berman](https://time.com/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic Oct 28, 2019 1:15 PM UTC We don’t exactly need more television in the year 2019, but we sure are getting it. When it launches on Friday, Nov. 1, Apple TV+ will kick off a [new generation of streaming services](https://time.com/5703656/best-streaming-services/) that includes Disney+, debuting on Nov. 12, and HBO Max, which is slated to arrive next year. And while the tech giant’s initial lineup of originals can’t compete with the vast content libraries of its competitors, there is some good stuff in the mix. To help you decide whether to plunk down $4.99 a month for Apple TV+, I screened all of the new series provided for advance review. (_Oprah’s Book Club_ and a handful of children’s programs also set to premiere Nov. 1 were not sent to critics.) Here’s a breakdown of what to watch, what to skip and everything in between. ## What to Watch ### **_The Morning Show_** Is the flagship show from Apple TV+ everything a drama _à clef_ about morning television in the [#MeToo](https://time.com/tag/metoo/) era should be? Probably not. The intersection of feminism, fame and media deserves more depth—and more boldness—than early episodes of _The Morning Show_ provide. Still, it’s pretty enjoyable to watch [Reese Witherspoon](https://time.com/collection-post/3822959/reese-witherspoon-2015-time-100/), [Jennifer Aniston](https://time.com/tag/jennifer-aniston/) and [Steve Carell](https://time.com/5413761/beautiful-boy-film/) play versions of the sanitized personalities with whom so many of us start our days. A supporting cast that includes Mark Duplass, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and [_The Diary of a Teenage Girl_](https://time.com/3984455/the-diary-of-a-teenage-girl-empowerment/) star Bel Powley is just as strong. Add in solid dialogue, quick pacing and decent production values, and the result is addictive, if not quite revelatory, viewing. (For more on _The Morning Show_, read my [full review](https://time.com/5711100/morning-show-review-apple-tv-plus/).) ### **_The Elephant Queen_** A hit at film festivals earlier this year, this nature doc from Victoria Stone and Mark Deeble follows a family of African elephants—led by 50-year-old matriarch Athena—as they trudge from one watering hole to the next, in search of hydration, sustenance and relief from the oppressive heat. The filmmakers get astonishing, often adorable, footage of the pachyderms trekking, playing and caring for one another. And [Chiwetel Ejiofor](https://time.com/4011974/chiwetel-ejiofor-z-for-zachariah/) provides gentle narration, introducing many animals who round out the elephants’ ecosystem, from the frogs and turtles who make homes in their wading pools to the dung beetles who… well, you can imagine. One note of caution: Though _The Elephant Queen_ is a family film, and it never devolves into a total downer, Athena’s clan eventually weathers a drought. Stone and Deeble don’t turn away from the tragedies that follow, in what might be a tough watch for very young viewers. ## What to Try ### **_For All Mankind_** “Red Moon.” That’s the newspaper headline on June 27, 1969 in the America of this solidly constructed alternate-history drama, which games out how the 20th century might’ve gone if the Soviets had beaten the United States to the moon. As a prolonged space race unfolds, creator Ronald D. Moore (the cult TV maker behind [_Battlestar Galactica_](https://time.com/3100889/battlestar-galactica/) and [_Outlander_](https://time.com/3086646/review-outlander-starz/)) imagines a demoralized NASA, where _The Killing_ star Joel Kinnaman’s disgruntled astronaut Edward Baldwin sabotages his own career with a drunken rant to a reporter about the cowardice of the organization’s leaders. Meanwhile, in a subplot that’s sweet and timely but feels tacked on, a Mexican girl crosses the border with outer space on her mind. If you’re intrigued by that premise—and neither exhausted by ‘60s period pieces where brilliant, flawed men brood as brilliant, perfect women endure retro sexism, nor put off by frequent scenes of mission control guys frantically mashing buttons—_For All Mankind_ is going to be your show. If not, there’s little else to see here. ### **_Dickinson_** There are straight-faced alternate histories, and then there’s this bonkers show, which poses the question: What if Emily Dickinson, [but too much](https://junkee.com/mallory-ortberg-accidentally-inspired-new-episode-black-mirror-making-fun-show/87981)? In an unexpectedly excellent casting choice, [Hailee Steinfeld](https://time.com/4109857/quick-talk-with-hailee-steinfeld/) plays the poet as a mercurial, mischievous, proto-goth teen (think Aubrey Plaza with a sugar high) who’s desperate to escape the domestic sphere. Obstacles to her liberation include a mother who’s obsessed with housework (Jane Krakowski in “zany Jenna Maroney project” mode), a fond but sexist dad (Toby Huss) and a brother (Adrian Enscoe) who insists on marrying Emily’s best friend and secret lover (Ella Hunt). Episodes inspired by poems juxtapose 19th-century visuals with contemporary-ish language, pop music and such YA archetypes as mean girls (and an inexplicable gay Japanese teen whose depiction made me cringe). The Dickinson kids throw an opium-fueled rager, grinding to rap in floor-length gowns. Emily escapes her home, one night, to snuggle with the personification of Death—played by an extremely high-looking [Wiz Khalifa](https://time.com/4194643/wiz-khalifa/)—in a carriage pulled by ghost horses. The show is kind of a mess, veering between empathetic depictions of its hero’s struggles against the social norms of her time and slapstick humor that recalls Comedy Central’s costume-drama parody [_Another Period_](https://time.com/3973083/another-period-natasha-leggero-riki-lindhome/). Yet it’s never boring. And to the extent that it represents Apple’s bravery in taking on a strange project from a first-time creator, Alena Smith, _Dickinson_ may be the most promising show to come out of the service’s initial lineup. ## What to Skip ### **_See_** As TV execs scramble to find the next [_Game of Thrones_](https://time.com/tag/game-of-thrones/), you can’t blame a new platform for throwing money at a big, silly genre show. But, at a [reported cost of $15 million per episode](https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691667/apple-tv-plus-see-shows-episodes-cost-report-streaming-disney-plus-hbo-max), _See_ is both bigger and sillier than most of its competition. Starring Khal Drogo himself, [Jason Momoa](https://time.com/4805870/game-of-thrones-jason-momoa-dance/), the sci-fi/fantasy hybrid takes place hundreds of years after a 21st-century virus wiped out all but 2 million humans, leaving those survivors—and, for some reason, all future generations—blind. Society has long since reorganized itself around sightlessness, a process that apparently entailed regressing into primitive, superstitious, warring tribes. Momoa’s Baba Voss is, unsurprisingly, a distinguished warrior with a heart of gold, who’s raising twin babies fathered by his new mate’s old lover as his own. The twist is that the kids and their biological dad, a guy who happens to be the object of a cruel charlatan queen’s (Sylvia Hoeks) obsession, can see. It isn’t a hopeless setup, though the idea that universal blindness would bring out the worst in humanity for centuries to come may verge on ableism. Yet the execution, particularly in scripts by Steven Knight (of January’s box-office bomb _Serenity_), is an unmitigated disaster. Speaking with that grand, stagey inflection I think of as Fantasy Voice, characters say things like: “I feel savage intent in the air.” Sex scenes, including what may well be the most awkward masturbation sequence in the history of television, are uniformly creepy. The plot has more holes than a sieve. Aside from Momoa doing what he does best—fighting, grunting, snuggling—Alfre Woodard gives the only memorable performance. Costumes look recycled from a dozen medieval or post-apocalyptic movies, though the queen could be an Anthropologie model. Director [Francis Lawrence](https://time.com/4120731/hunger-games-mockingjay-francis-lawrence/) (who helmed the final three _Hunger Games_ movies) gets in some lovely nature shots, but the massive amount of screentime devoted to combat and foot travel can be mind numbing. Not to put too fine a point on it, _See_ is one of the worst TV series I’ve seen in years. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5710943/apple-tv-plus-what-to-watch/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5710943/apple-tv-plus-what-to-watch/"},"headline":"What to Watch—and What to Skip—on Apple TV+","datePublished":"2019-10-28T13:15:01.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T07:38:48.472Z","description":"A pocket guide to the streaming service that debuts Nov. 1.","url":"https://time.com/5710943/apple-tv-plus-what-to-watch/","keywords":["Television"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Judy Berman","jobTitle":"TV Critic","url":"https://time.com/author/judy-berman/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/television/","name":"Television"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5710943/apple-tv-plus-what-to-watch/","name":"What to Watch—and What to Skip—on Apple TV+"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Morning Show — Official Trailer – Apple TV+","description":"The Morning Show — Official Trailer – Apple TV+","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/wRloVev4/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2019-08-19T14:58:12.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/wRloVev4.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5710943/apple-tv-plus-what-to-watch/","duration":"PT2M50S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5710943/apple-tv-plus-what-to-watch/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Elephant Queen — Official Movie Trailer","description":"The Elephant Queen — Official Movie Trailer","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/RzCFujKW/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2019-10-25T20:40:29.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/RzCFujKW.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5710943/apple-tv-plus-what-to-watch/","duration":"PT1M31S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5710943/apple-tv-plus-what-to-watch/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"For All Mankind — Official First Look Trailer - Apple TV","description":"For All Mankind — Official First Look Trailer - Apple TV","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/3NKpdkam/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2019-10-25T20:43:35.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/3NKpdkam.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5710943/apple-tv-plus-what-to-watch/","duration":"PT2M3S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5710943/apple-tv-plus-what-to-watch/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Dickinson — Official - Immortality - Trailer","description":"Dickinson — Official - Immortality - Trailer","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/VuMvN3Cr/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2019-10-25T20:37:14.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/VuMvN3Cr.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5710943/apple-tv-plus-what-to-watch/","duration":"PT1M30S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5710943/apple-tv-plus-what-to-watch/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"SEE – Official Trailer - Apple TV","description":"SEE – Official Trailer - Apple TV","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/OEX2i8iM/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2019-10-25T20:46:52.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/OEX2i8iM.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5710943/apple-tv-plus-what-to-watch/","duration":"PT2M38S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5710943/apple-tv-plus-what-to-watch/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```