Apple TV+ is free this weekend. Here's what we'd watch

Anna Konkle in The Afterparty on Apple TV+ Apple TV+ hide caption toggle caption Apple TV+ Subscribing to every streaming service out there is not an option for most people. It just isn't. They're too expensive, there are too many, and it's also just a lot of work to keep track of so many options and apps and interfaces. Some folks pick and choose, while some folks use the rotation method (service #1 for a few months to catch up, then service #2 for a few months to watch their stuff, and so forth). Apple TV+ is free this weekend for anybody who has an Apple ID. It's a service that has not taken off the way some people thought it might, despite having some successes — Ted Lasso in particular. I'm not here to tell you to pick this service over any other one, or to pay for it at all. But I am here to give you a little advice on what might be worth using this free weekend to catch, since they're giving it away. Some things (aside from Ted Lasso) have gotten a ton of good press already. Severance is a spooky, beautifully designed drama/sci-fi story about the drudgery of office life, and it's starting again in a couple weeks, so now could be the perfect time to catch up. Pachinko is a really moving saga based on Min Jin Lee's novel of the same name. My current favorite show, if I had to name one, is Shrinking, a very funny and often very emotionally rich story about a bunch of great characters, many of them therapists — it also features my favorite Harrison Ford performance in years and years and years. Bad Sisters, especially the first season, is a delicious and fabulously performed story of devoted siblings getting the better of a terrible, terrible husband. Other favorites of the TV critics I know: Dickinson, Slow Horses, For All Mankind, Silo, and this year's Cate Blanchett drama Disclaimer. And they've got movies, too: Coda won best picture at the 2022 Oscars, after all. But maybe you feel like "yes, yes, I've heard of all those things." So let me spotlight a handful of other Apple offerings that haven't gotten quite as much attention that you might enjoy. This piece also appeared in NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter so you don't miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what's making us happy. Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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