Mapping the Apple TV+ Universe

From mystery-solving women to big-brained sci-fi, these categories reflect the streamer’s ongoing obsessions.

In the beginning, Apple TV+ was a blank slate. The service had a splashy unveiling with big names attached but gave little indication of how its programming was supposed to wedge into an already-crowded streaming landscape. “All of our shows have something to say about the relationships we have with each other and with the world,” said Zack Van Amburg, one of the television chiefs Apple brought in to create the service, ahead of its 2019 launch. That’s like saying all of its shows would feature actors and a plot. This initial strategy produced a fair number of shows no one cared about (Spielberg’s Amazing Stories, Oprah’s Book Club), but at least one generated a brand-defining hit: The Reese Witherspoon–and–Jennifer Aniston–starring The Morning Show, an Emmy darling despite being a soap-operatic mess you can’t quite look away from. Apple TV+ has since made many a sleek, expensive-looking, ultimately generic series in its half-decade of existence. But the service has also strung together enough critical hits and unambiguous cultural smashes — Ted Lasso, Severance, Slow Horses, Presumed Innocent — to establish itself as a creative force whose latest release is always worth your curiosity, even when it ends up disappointing. In an age of streaming overabundance, that’s everything.

And it’s still rising. Though Apple TV+ still attracts ridicule for a reportedly tiny viewership relative to heavyweights like Netflix, Hollywood is increasingly showing the streamer respect, as reflected in its most Emmy nominations to date this past awards cycle. Apple TV+ has been around long enough, and has produced enough stuff, that we can now derive a clear sense of its tastes and identity. Yes, it’s a prime purveyor of quality Dad TV, but that doesn’t cover everything: Apple TV+ is now a fully defined programmer that lays claim to the fixations and pleasures of the comfortably wealthy American. This taxonomy is not meant to be a comprehensive accounting; every series available on the streamer is not listed here, and there are many thematic threads left unexplored. But these blocs of programming all reflect something about how Apple TV+ sees the television business, the world, and its customers.

BIG BEEFY BOYS

Hardcore dadcore.
In another era, these would’ve made for the perfect cable movie. Apple has carved out an effective niche producing thrillers with muscular male leads (and one extra-large Kaiju) and just enough polish to notch above Prime Video in terms of prestige. These shows generally come in two flavors: action-packed thrillers such as Hijack and literally dark dramas typically featuring men under Grisham-esque legal duress, i.e., Presumed Innocent.

See¹
Defending Jacob²
Black Bird
Shantaram
Echo 3
The Crowded Room³
Hijack
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
Presumed Innocent⁴

AMERICA!

Dad history as a TV series.
Corporate tax sheltering aside, Apple TV+ has a patriotic streak. It’s good Dad TV synergy, too, given the propensity of dads across America to keep historical-nonfiction tomes (like the source material for Masters of the Air) on their bedside tables.

Masters of the Air
Manhunt⁵
Franklin⁶

… AMERICA?

A less-perfect union.
At the same time, you can’t be a serious television programmer if you’re not producing shows that grapple with America’s moral standing — or at least gesture in that direction, as evinced by The Problem with Jon Stewart.

The Problem With Jon Stewart⁷
For All Mankind
Hello! Tomorrow
Five Days at Memorial⁸

MEN AND THEIR DISCONTENTS

The Bill Lawrence Achievement category.
Many canonical shows in the so-called Golden Age of Television were about gritty, violent, unhappy men. Apple TV+ draws from the same archetypal well, though its flailing men tend to suffer from existential malaise or struggle with their goodness. The service finds its greatest collaborator for this aesthetic in Bill Lawrence, whose Ted Lasso has come to define a treacly quality associated with the brand.

Ted Lasso
Mr. Corman⁹
The Shrink Next Door¹⁰
Shrinking¹¹
The Big Door Prize¹²
The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey¹³

COLD AND SAD IN EUROPE

Is it ever summer over there?
Slow Horses is a foundational pillar of Apple’s Dad TV canon, but it’s also the apotheosis of a kind of Eurocentric genre programming it has favored since its inception: shadowy, grim, cities perennially on the brink of disaster. It’s never sunny in London, apparently. 

Slow Horses
Bad Sisters
Liaison¹⁴
Criminal Record¹⁵
The New Look¹⁶

SHINY SCI-FI

For your iPhone.
It makes all the sense in the world that Apple, a tech giant with the future on its mind, would display a strong affinity for science fiction. What’s also distinct is the type of sci-fi it typically favors, as established by Foundation: high-minded or prestigious and crafted to look as sleek and clean as the devices the company produces. 

Foundation
Invasion
Dr. Brain
Silo
Constellation¹⁷
Sugar¹⁸
Dark Matter¹⁹
Sunny²⁰

PRESTIGE FEMINISM

The Saoirse Ronan screaming “WOMEN” meme as a series.
Apple TV+ can probably make its strongest claim against Dad TV essentialism with its slate of Strong Female Leads. With some exceptions, these shows tend to be the safest possible version of themselves (and of feminism), as defined by multi-Emmy nominee Lessons in Chemistry.

Little Voice
Physical
Roar
Shining Girls²¹
Lessons in Chemistry
Land of Women
Lady in the Lake²²

REESE’S BOOK CLUB

Hello Sunshine coded.
The Morning Show is one of Apple TV+’s signature programs, and Reese Witherspoon is one of its defining tastemakers. Not all of these shows are directly produced by Witherspoon’s production shingle, Hello Sunshine, but they are contiguous with her melodramtic, women-investigating-mysteries aesthetic.

The Morning Show
Truth Be Told
Surface²³
Dear Edward
The Last Thing He Told Me²⁴

TOTALLY LUSH PERIOD PIECES

A small nation’s GDP in costuming. 
Opulent and majestic, Apple TV+’s period pieces are testaments to what can be done with sizable production budgets. They might run the gamut from a genre perspective, but all share the impressive visual richness exemplified by Pachinko.

Dickinson
Schmigadoon!²⁵
Pachinko
The Essex Serpent²⁶
The Buccaneers
The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin

FRICTIONLESS WEALTH PORN

Trials and tribulations of the one percent.
Reflecting the rough class position of Apple’s corporate employees and prime customers, these comedies are situated either in the highest echelons of wealth (see Loot’s benevolent billionaire protag) or settings where the characters are rich enough that material needs never quite come into play.

The Afterparty
Loot
Drops of God²⁷
Platonic
Palm Royale²⁸

SILICON VALLEY CONCERNS

Aren’t we a big tech company?
Closest to home, though a surprisingly short list. Best defined by Severance, a show that takes work-life balance to the extreme.

Mythic Quest
Severance
WeCrashed²⁹

TIDY HORROR

Respectable but not too scary.
A small but significant genre within the Apple TV+ universe, this can be viewed as the streamer’s attempt to realize its version of A24-ean “elevated horror.” Like the M. Night Shyamalan–run Servant, these series feel classy but a little bloodless.

Servant
The Changeling
Lisey’s Story³⁰

BIG-BRAINED ANTHOLOGIES

An answer to Black Mirror.
Earlier in its run, the streamer exhibited a fondness for commissioning high-concept material through the anthology format. It rarely resulted in a cohesive, or even compelling, package.

Amazing Stories³¹
Calls³²
Extrapolations

SWEATY-WEATHER NOIR

Blue Sky TV 2.0.
Typified by Bad Monkey, another Bill Lawrence show, this category suggests a streaming service moving to claim the populist form of television USA Network left on the table.

High Desert
Bad Monkey

APPLE TV+ HAS ANIMATED SHOWS?

And they’re good?
They really are!

Central Park
The Snoopy Show
Frog and Toad
Strange Planet