drama series

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on drama series:

With Severance season 3 coming, plans for 2 spinoffs emerge

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Severance season 3
Severance season three, currently on the writers' room drawing board, will enter production with two spinoff shows in early stages of development.
Photo: Apple TV+

Apple TV+’s critically acclaimed series Severance will expand beyond its upcoming third season, possibly including two spinoffs and merchandise, according to recent revelations from director Ben Stiller and star Adam Scott in a new interview. That news alongside Severance season 3 progress should delight fans of the dystopian workplace drama as much as any “overtime contingency” could.

Jon Hamm lives his best lie in edgy drama Your Friends and Neighbors [Now streaming!]

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Your Friends & Neighbors trailer
That fancy gate looks an awful lot like jail bars.
Photo: Apple TV+

A handsome and charming hedge fund manager gets fired and turns to a life of crime, stealing from his well-heeled neighbors by night — inadvertently uncovering their surprisingly dangerous secrets. That’s the gist of the entertaining trailer Apple TV+ dropped recently for drama Your Friends & Neighbors. Starring Jon Hamm, Olivia Munn and Amanda Peet, it debuts April 11.

And get this — Apple has so much confidence in the new show, it green-lighted the second season before the first one even aired.

Update: Your Friends & Neighbors started streaming on Apple TV+ on Friday (actually Thursday evening, per the streamer’s usual practice). Reviews so far are good. The Daily Beast said Hamm aand Peet “are at the top of their game” in the show. For NPR, the drama brought to mind John Cheever’s classic novels about the soullessness of American suburbs. And Deadline said the series “combines social commentary, dark humor, twisty relationships and a murder mystery.” And the already planned season two might be darker in tone.

Apple TV+ renews fan-favorite Severance for season 3 

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Apple TV+ renews Severance for third season
Adam Scott as Mark S. in "Severance." And it looks like he'll be back -- maybe with those celebratory balloons.
Photo: Apple TV+

Apple TV+ renewed Severance for a third season Friday, delighting fans of the surreal drama series on the same day its season two finale aired. And Apple CEO Tim Cook and show executive producer and director Ben Stiller had some fun with an X.com post, below.

“What Ben, Dan, Adam and the talented cast and crew behind Severance have brought to the screen is undeniable magic,” said Matt Cherniss, head of Apple TV+ programming. “We’re so proud to be the home for this brilliant series and look forward to audiences experiencing what’s in store for Season 3.”

Carême: Chef. Spy. Lover. And French beyond belief. [Apple TV+ trailer]

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Careme trailer
The series could be a lot of fun, but it might help if you're French or a Francophile.
Photo: Apple TV+

As someone who lived in the French-speaking part of Switzerland for a few years, I’m no stranger to poking fun when I catch a whiff of the sometimes-preposterously self-important and pretentious side of the French persona. And the new Apple TV+ trailer for Carême reeks of it.

While the premise of the streamer’s upcoming French-language series sounds interesting — a rags-to-riches story of the world’s first celebrity chef, who also worked as a spy — the series looks overwhelmingly French.

“Chef. Spy. Lover,” reads the tagline for the historical drama. Apple TV+ calls it “daring” and “provocative.” Ooh la la.

Carême premieres April 30 for those with a taste for that sort of thing.

3 reasons to watch gripping Dope Thief on Apple TV+

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3 reasons to watch Dope Thief on Apple TV+
Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura star as old friends who screw up royally in Dope Thief.
Photo: Apple TV+

The latest addition to Apple TV+’s impressive lineup, Dope Thief brings a fresh perspective to the crime drama genre. Based on Dennis Tafoya’s 2009 novel of the same name, this gripping series follows two friends who pose as DEA agents to rob Philadelphia drug dealers. But the scheme spirals into chaos when they unknowingly target a major narcotics operation. With its first two episodes now streaming, and six more to go, here are 3 reasons to watch Dope Thief. The compelling show deserves your attention (so far).

New Apple TV+ drama explores life of world’s first celebrity chef (and French spy)

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Apple TV+ drama Careme
Historical drama Carême debuts on Apple TV+ on April 30.
Photo: Apple TV+

These days celebrity chefs have their own TV shows. They shill their product lines and cookbooks all over the place. But if you go back far enough, you can find the very first superstar cook who started it all, and in a very different time. That’s what Apple TV+ did with Carême, it’s upcoming French-language drama series. Like the book it’s based on, it chronicles the fascinating life of Antonin Carême, “the world’s first celebrity chef who secretly served as a spy in Napoleon’s Europe,” as the streamer put it.

The series, premiering April 30, stars César Award winner Benjamin Voisin as Carême. Apple TV+ offered several appetizing photographs Wednesday as a first look at the show.

Berlin ER brings the pain in a good way [Apple TV+ trailer]

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Berlin ER trailer
Apple TV+ calls it "gritty" repeatedly, and it really seems to be.
Photo: Apple TV+

Apple TV+ trots out the word “gritty” in press materials that go with its gripping new trailer for Berlin ER, the upcoming German-language hospital drama formerly known as Krank Berlin. And for the first time, PR for the show seems to actually live up to that description.

The trailer makes the new series look raw, with a visceral realism about the harsh realities of an inner-city hospital that makes me want to watch it, even if I have to use subtitles (or maybe, ugh, dubbed English). The eight-episode series starts streaming on Apple TV+ February 26.

Apple TV+ knows what you want: German hospital dramas [Updated]

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KRANK Berlin on Apple TV+
Haley Louise Jones will star in a new medical drama “KRANK Berlin" on Apple TV+.
Photo: Apple TV+

Apple TV+ casts its net wide for quality programming, offering plenty of entertainment from distant lands. So why not a German hospital drama? A “gritty” new eight-episode series called Krank Berlin Berlin ER is headed your way soon. Apple offered a description of the “vibrant and dynamic” show. And since first announcing it, the stream has posted an air date, below, for the German-language medical drama — as well as a new title.

Update: Apple TV+ gave Krank Berlin a boring new title and an air date Wednesday. Now named Berlin ER, the series, which comes to us from a former emergency room doctor, streams with its first two episodes February 26, 2025.

Apple TV+’s Drops of God wins best-drama International Emmy

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Drops of God wins international best drama award
The show's first season scored a perfect 100% Fresh critical rating on Rottentomatoes.com.
Photo: Apple TV+

In a big win for Apple TV+, the French-American-Japanese series Drops of God captured the prestigious International Emmy Award for Best Drama Series at a ceremony Monday night in New York, according to reports late Monday and Tuesday.

The win strengthens Apple TV+’s growing reputation for delivering compelling international content and marks another successful adaptation of popular manga for the streaming platform. Fans will be excited to know that Drops of God Season 2 is set to return, promising even more gripping storytelling.

Shrinking and Disclaimer stay hits for Apple TV+

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Harrison Ford and Jason Segel in Shrinking season 2
Harrison Ford and Jason Segel in Shrinking on Apple TV+.
Photo: Apple TV+

The Apple TV+ dramedy Shrinking stayed among the top 10 most popular streaming series for another week, according to two ratings companies. And the sexy drama Disclaimer continues to pull in a large audience, too.

Both have been among the most-watched series on streaming since they debuted.

Harrowing season 2 ventures outside the Silo [Now streaming]

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Silo season 2 trailer
Dystopian drama series "Silo" returns to Apple TV+ for its second season on November 15.
Photo: Apple TV+

In hit Apple TV+ sci-fi series Silo, Rebecca Ferguson’s engineer character, Juliette, spent her whole life toiling in the bowels of a giant tube sunk into the soil, protected along with the last 10,000 people on Earth from a supposedly deadly outside world. But she’s willing to risk venturing outside to find the truth in the season 2 trailer of dystopian drama. Apple TV+ dropped it Monday.

Update: Silo‘s eagerly awaited 10-episode second season emerged on Apple TV+ Friday, November 15, with the first episode. Tagline: “Juliette finds sanctuary in a silo long ago destroyed by war, thinking she’s alone.” Want a quick taste? Watch the first 5 minutes here.

Math genius and NSA spook calculate conspiracy in Prime Target on Apple TV+

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Prime Target on Apple TV+
If you add up math genius, computer (in)security, the NSA and vile plots, does it equal riveting TV? Hopefully. The new show stars SAG Award winner Leo Woodall and Quintessa Swindell.
Photo: Apple TV+

Prime Target, a new conspiracy thriller series involving a math genius, an NSA agent and probably a whole lot of paranoia, begins streaming January 25, Apple TV+ said Thursday. The eight-episode series starring SAG Award winner Leo Woodall, Quintessa Swindell and Stephen Rea, among others. It comes to us from writer Steve Thompson (Sherlock, Vienna Blood).

Dark truths close in on Cate Blanchett in psychothriller Disclaimer [Now streaming!]

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trailer for Disclaimer
"Disclaimer" debuts on Apple TV+ with two episodes October 11.
Photo: Apple TV+

A revered London journalist’s life seems picture-perfect at the start of the new trailer for Apple TV+ psychological thriller series Disclaimer. But by the end of the trailer, she stands on the precipice of ugly ruin.

Created and directed by five-time Academy Award winner Alfonso Cuarón, Disclaimer stars Cate Blanchett as the journalist, Sacha Baron Cohen as her supportive husband, and Kevin Kline as a man bent on destroying her by revealing “the truth.” The trailer for Disclaimer, released Tuesday, looks seriously enthralling. The show premieres October 11 on Apple TV+.

UPDATE: Alfonso Cuarón’s Disclaimer series started streaming Friday on Apple TV+. Reviews seem mixed, to say the least. One reviewer called it “the best TV show of the year” while another damned it as a “flaccid, pretentious slog.” You better watch it and make up your own mind.

Slow Horses season 4 ratchets up the heart-pounding action [Updated: Now streaming]

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Slow Horses season 4 trailer
Slow Horses season four just started streaming. It's an action-packed comedy spy thriller.
Image: Apple TV+

London is under threat from shopping-mall car bombers and espionage masterminds, and somehow Gary Oldman’s MI5 screwups once again end up in the middle of the action. That’s according to the new Slow Horses season four trailer for the black-comedy spy-thriller series.

The Emmy-nominated and BAFTA-winning series stars Oldman as MI5’s irascible Slough House section chief Jackson Lamb. The six-episode season premieres September 4 on Apple TV+.

UPDATE: Season 4 of Slow Horses gets underway Wednesday with the first episode, entitled “Identity Theft,” on Apple TV+. “A London bombing triggers and explosive hidden past,” notes the streamer’s tagline. A season review in The Guardian calls the show “faultlessly directed,” notes the cast is even better than before and says “Gary Oldman roars like a bear dipped in chip fat.”

Just what we need, another pretentious show about French fashion (en français!) [Apple TV+ trailer]

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La Maison trailer
Couldn't get enough of "The New Look" and its French fashion designers under Nazi occupation? Well, here's a contemporary melodrama about French high fashion houses pour vous.
Photo: Apple TV+

First Apple TV+ unveiled The New Look, a World War II drama depicting French fashion designers heroically carrying on with their vital work in Nazi-occupied Paris. Now the trailer for La Maison, a melodramatic family saga about a fictional French fashion house in crisis, struts down the catwalk. And it’s entirely in French. Hey, it could be great. Or, as the trailer suggests, it could be preposterously self-important.

And check out that tagline: “The fabric of power.” Seriously?

On the plus side, the show is brought to us by some talented folks behind good stuff — The Returned, Lupin and Le Bureau des Légendes. So I’ll leave out the “La Maison du Merde” jokes for now. La Maison debuts on Apple TV+ September 20.

Midnight Family of Mexico City paramedics struggles to serve — and survive [Apple TV+ trailer]

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Midnight Family trailer
In a city of 10 million people and only about 100 public ambulances, a family tries to make a living while making up the difference.
Photo: Apple TV+

A talented Mexico City medical student studies hard by day and saves lives by night, hurtling around the sprawling metropolis in her family’s private ambulance. But it looks like something’s got to give under the strain of it all in the trailer Apple TV+ dropped Tuesday for the upcoming Spanish-language drama series Midnight Family.

Sure, you might need subtitles, but it looks like a rewarding ride. The 10-episode series, based on a documentary, debuts on Apple TV+ September 25.

Presumed Innocent is the most popular series on streaming … again

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Jake Gyllenhaal and Renate Reinsve in Presumed Innocent, now streaming on Apple TV+.
Jake Gyllenhaal and Renate Reinsve in Presumed Innocent on Apple TV+.
Photo: Apple TV+

The Apple TV+ crime drama Presumed Innocent has been among the most watched shows on streaming since launching in mid-June, according to analysts. Season one of the series — which stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a man who might, or might not, have murdered the woman he’s having an affair with — recently wrapped up, and the opportunity to bingewatch all the episodes pushed the show to become the most viewed on any streaming platform, according to analysts.

Plus, the reimagining of Time Bandits found a big audience, and Natalie Portman’s Lady in the Lake had another strong week.

See Natalie Portman’s surreal nightmare in Lady in the Lake [Updated: Now streaming]

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Lady in the Lake
This series starring Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram looks a lot weirder than expected.
Photo: Apple TV+

At first glance a Baltimore crime story set in 1966, the limited series Lady in the Lake soon turns into a surreal nightmare, as shown in the trailer Apple TV+ dropped for it recently. As the streamer said in press materials, the show, starring Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram, turns into a “feverish noir thriller and an unexpected tale about the price women pay for their dreams.”

So it’s a bizarre and arresting trailer. It includes “live performances” that are like fever dreams. The seven-part series debuts with its first two episodes on Friday, July 19.

Update: The new Apple TV+ drama series Lady in the Lake is now streaming, as of Friday. Reviews look a bit mixed — with some offering high praise for Portman in her TV debut — but you should see for yourself and watch the new show here.

All the new comedies and dramas on Apple TV+ in summer 2024

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Apple TV+ series coming summer 2024
Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal and Vince Vaughn all headline series on Apple TV+ in summer 2024.
Photo: Apple TV+/Cult of Mac

Apple TV+ subscribers are getting new comedies and thrillers to enjoy in summer 2024. And there are plenty of big-name stars, too. Eight new shows debuted between the beginning of June and the end of August (and a film to boot).

Here’s what’s new on Apple’s streaming service or coming in the next two months.

Slow Horses season 4 brings Spook Street to life

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Slow Horses season 4
Here's your first look at "Slow Horses" season 4. Once again, somebody deserves an award for giving Gary Oldman the Jackson Lamb look (you know, makeup that suggests decades of booze, smokes, greasy food and stress).
Photo: Apple TV+

Here’s your eagerly awaited dead drop, Slow Horses fans: The fourth season of the BAFTA Award-winning espionage series returns to Apple TV+ on September 4, according to the “first look” the streamer gave Thursday. That’s the image above. And once again, some makeup artist deserves major awards for making Gary Oldman look like sagging spymaster Jackson Lamb, poster boy for decades of booze, smokes, greasy food, stress and betrayal.

Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline star in psycho-thriller on Apple TV+

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psycho-thriller Disclaimer on Apple TV+
Looks like things are about to go south for the big-time author played by Cate Blanchett.
Photo: Apple TV+

Looks like Cate Blanchett might get a vile taste of her own medicine at the hands of Kevin Kline in upcoming psychological thriller Disclaimer, according to a “first look” at the limited series Apple TV+ put out Tuesday. That could be dawning horror on the Oscar winner’s face in the new image, above.

Notably, Academy Award winner Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, Gravity, Roma) created and directed the show. Based on a bestselling novel, Disclaimer premieres on Apple TV+ October 11.

Gyllenhaal says ‘I did not kill her’ 12 times in Presumed Innocent trailer

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Presumed Innocent on Apple TV+
Jake doth protest too much, no? Or maybe that's just what they want you to think.
Graphic: Apple TV+

Jake Gyllenhaal’s character wants people to believe he “did not kill her,” as he forcefully states a full dozen times in the space of about 2 minutes in the first full trailer for Presumed Innocent, a drama series coming soon to Apple TV+.

So yeah, he totally killed her. Isn’t that what movie stars playing jilted stalkers do? Or maybe not. It’s a guessing game.

Gyllenhaal and multi-Emmy Award winners David E. Kelley and J.J. Abrams bring the eight-part remake to Apple TV+ June 12.

Black Panthers tap Hollywood to fake out FBI in The Big Cigar [Updated]

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The Big Cigar trailer
Under cover of a fake Hollywood movie production, Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton evaded the FBI and fled to Cuba. Really!
Photo: Apple TV+

The first trailer for Apple TV+’s The Big Cigar, below, looks like so much fun I almost don’t want to know how true the “incredible true story” about Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton actually is. And as of Friday, the show’s on with its first two episodes.

The upcoming drama series tells the tale of Newton enlisting a Hollywood producer to fake out the FBI, providing cover for the political activist’s escape to Cuba in 1974. That came after Newton jumped bail on murder and assault charges he called false.

UPDATE: The Big Cigar now airs on Apple TV+. The first two episodes came out Friday. The third episode airs May 24.

Mexico’s ‘Women in Blue’ arrive to fight crime on Apple TV+

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Women in Blue on Apple TV+
More than 50 years ago, Mexico established a female police force.
Photo: Apple TV+

Did you know Mexico established an all-female police force decades ago? Well, now you do, thanks to the first look Apple dropped Friday for the Women in Blue crime series (aka Las Azules). The new Spanish-language, 10-part drama is set in 1970 against the backdrop of a serial killer’s spree.

Created by International Emmy Award winner Fernando Rovzar and featuring Ariel Award nominee Bárbara Mori, the show debuts July 31 on Apple TV+.

Apple TV+ bags big British awards for Slow Horses and Silo

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Slow Horses Silo BAFTA wins
Apple TV+ took four prizes in the TV craft awards, and may win more in the broader BAFTA Television Awards.
Photo: Apple TV+

The BAFTA Television Craft Awards — a branch of the BAFTAs, often thought of as the British Oscars — awarded wins to Apple TV+ hit series Slow Horses and Silo, the iPhone giant said Sunday.

The acerbic espionage drama Slow Horses won for best editing and best sound. Sci-fi series Silo landed wins for best production design and best original music.

In addition, Apple TV+ received further nominations in the upcoming BAFTA Television Awards.