Apple TV+ is a strange ol’ streaming service, spending wads of Apple’s infinite money on incredibly expensive prestige television and movies, and then hiding it all as best it could. In recent months, it’s occurred to the company that perhaps it’d be good if people saw the stuff it’s making, adding the service as an option on Amazon Prime, and now it’s offering a completely free weekend to lure you in. It’s just, there’s also an awful lot of confusion about when it actually starts.
It’s purportedly not set up such that you have to cancel once the free weekend is over on January 5, which is good. I say purportedly, because right now we’re unable to get it to offer anything other than the standard seven-day free trial, which does require you to cancel. It’s also worth noting that on Apple’s own press release for the offer, it describes it as running January 3 to 5, but the embedded video says it’s January 4 to 5. We contacted Apple to get some clarification, and it didn’t clear things up a great deal. It’s expected to start at some point in the evening in ET zones, but perhaps earlier in PT, and then beyond that, “the timing just depends on the territory.”
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If you can get it working, there’s a wealth of excellent stuff to watch on the streamer, genuinely some of the best TV in the last few years. My personal favorite is Silo, an adaptation of the Wool novels set in a post-apocalyptic underground bunker. Then there’s For All Mankind, a wonderful alternative-timeline historical drama set in a version of the world where Russia beat America to landing on the moon, and the consequential space race. Both are gripping dramas.
Then there’s Severance, Ben Stiller and Adam Scott’s incredible twist on a workplace comedy in which everything is distinctly not OK, Bill “Scrubs” Lawrence’s comedy Ted Lasso following an American coach of a British football team, and indeed Bill Lawrence’s comedy-drama-cum-murder mystery Bad Monkey, with Vince Vaughn finally finding a platform in which he can shine.
There’s a ton of other sci-fi on there too, among it Invasion, Dark Matter, Foundation, Constellation, and the Godzilla spin-off show Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. Other hugely rated shows include Slow Horses starring Gary Oldman, Bad Sisters with the amazing Sharon Horgan, and Disclaimer starring Cate Blanchett.
A lot of the above shows have been cancelled, so cruel is the world of spending hundreds of millions on TV shows that don’t ever get a chance to find an audience, but none so brutally as Taika Waititi’s reimagining of Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits. But, you know, if you’re only planning to blitz the archive for a single weekend, you may as well watch what looks enjoyable.
Um, Apple has also made some movies.
Is there a catch? Well, sure. You’ll need to sign up for an Apple ID to do this, which is to say, this is a massive database play by the megacorp, looking to gather vast numbers of email addresses to bombard with further nags. But of course it’s that, and we’re all capable of unsubscribing, or using a temporary email address.
Whether it actually starts Friday or Saturday (we shall update accordingly), it seems like a pretty decent deal. If you want one show to focus on, pick Silo. And Severance. And For All Mankind.
Updated: 01/03/2025, 10:32 a.m. ET: Added some vague details about when the offer begins in the U.S. based on Apple’s response to our questions.
