The Apple TV+ Problem
Apple TV+ has more money than anyone and a production slate that cannot be reconciled with itself. An essay on the strangest major streamer.
5 pieces
Apple TV+ has more money than anyone and a production slate that cannot be reconciled with itself. An essay on the strangest major streamer.
The specific tools that made prestige TV great have, across two decades of refinement, become the tools that are now limiting it. An essay on formal exhaustion.
Eleven months after Severance returned, the second season's structural gambles are clearer. The show's patience has always been its argument; the real question is whether that argument still scales.
The eight-episode prestige-TV season has become the default format. It is also, for most shows, the wrong length. An essay on what the episode count is costing us.
The limited series is absorbing the specific talent, capital, and formal experimentation that used to sustain the multi-season drama. An essay on what the two forms do differently, and what we are losing.