I wrote yesterday about the merits of signing up for certain streaming services for just one month, watching the best of what they offer, and then dropping them.
One service that I would have done that with is Apple TV+, but I didn’t have to. I bought an iPhone a year ago and it came with a free year of Apple TV+. Then Jennifer purchased an iPad last month, so that gives us another year.
Early last year we watched two series — The Morning Show, starring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell, which was pretty good, and For All Mankind, an alternative history of the Apollo space program (the Soviets get to the moon first), which was wonderful. We also enjoyed two solid movies: The Banker, with Anthony Mackie and Samuel L. Jackson, and Greyhound, a WWII naval adventure starring Tom Hanks.
And that was about it. For months, nothing on Apple TV+ sparked our interest — until just a couple of weeks ago when our friend Elisa told us she was enjoying a lighthearted Apple TV+ series called Ted Lasso. It’s about an American amateur football coach — played by Jason Sudeikis, formerly of Saturday Night Live — who goes to the UK to manage a struggling professional soccer team. I had seen ads for the show when it debuted last summer but didn’t bother with it because neither Jennifer nor I are into sports. That was a mistake. We just finished watching the first season of Ted Lasso and loved it.
So much TV these days is dark, grim, or emotionally harrowing — except for the comedies, which are typically vapid and puerile. Ted Lasso is a humane and genuine comedy-drama that combines optimism and pathos, flippancy and depth. It made us laugh, and care, and feel good about humanity. We’d start an episode in the evening before turning the lights out and inevitably stay up late to watch a second one.
Should you decide to sample Apple TV+, or if you buy an Apple device that comes with a free subscription, put Ted Lasso and For All Mankind at the top of your viewing list.