The Big Picture
- AppleTV+ is becoming the go-to platform for intelligent and visually stunning sci-fi shows like Foundation and Invasion.
- The focus on well-developed characters sets AppleTV+ shows apart from others, making the audience emotionally invested in the story.
- AppleTV+ commits to its audience and projects, investing in quality writing, talented actors, and long-term success, setting itself apart from other streaming services.
If you are a fan of resplendent, otherworldly environments, interstellar galaxies, alien races, and all the other wonderful escapist elements within the science fiction genre, then you probably have noticed that you are tuning into one particular streamer much more often these days. AppleTV+ has started to corner the market on not only out-of-this-world space adventures but well-written and cerebral character-driven tales that will leave you both visually dazzled and psychologically stimulated. They have produced fan favorites like Ted Lasso, The Afterparty, The Morning Show, and many others, but over the past several years, they have really focused on bringing some of the smartest sci-fi shows as part of their service. With notable and well-received entries like Silo, Foundation, and Invasion all debuting within the last 24 months, and For All Mankind coming off three solid and well-received seasons, they have firmly established themselves as the streamer to watch for the more discerning fans of the genre. Okay, that sounds a bit elitist, but this really is the place to catch thought-provoking sci-fi shows right now.
AppleTV+ is Really Flexing Right Now With ‘Foundation’ and ‘Invasion’
With new episodes of Foundation dropping every Friday, and new Invasion entries every Wednesday, AppleTV+ has never flexed its muscle more in the sci-fi genre than it is right now. With two flagship shows being greenlighted for a second season, both are just starting to hit their stride with compelling and intellectual premises that really give your imagination a healthy workout. But there are a lot of shows out there that offer viscerally impactful cinematography. What sets current AppleTV+ shows apart from the rest is the focus on its characters. Right now, Foundation and Invasion are streaming a second batch of episodes and both are enthralling for a variety of reasons — not the least of which is the engaging and rigorously developed players and character arcs within these ethereal worlds. You can have the most aesthetically attractive and nuanced worldbuilding, but it is all relatively meaningless if you don’t give a damn about the individuals in the story. Characters like Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey), Dr. Hari Seldon (Jared Harris), and Brother Day (Lee Pace) in Foundation give us a reason to emotionally invest ourselves every week. The same can be said of Mitsuki Yamoto (Shioli Kutsuna), Aneesha Malik (Golshifteh Farahani), and Trevante Cole (Shamier Anderson) in Invasion. All of these players bring something different to the story, and they have all been given thorough backstories.
Apple TV Excels at Getting the Best Talent
From the writers of the source material to experienced and seasoned showrunners to casting the most talented actors and actresses, it all makes such an enormous difference in the final product that ends up on our screens. It all starts with the material that gets written on the page. Issac Asimov is widely considered the foremost science fiction writer whose contributions to the genre are immeasurable. And Foundation is perhaps his finest series of books. He won the Hugo Award for the series, which contains seven novels. Invasion writer Simon Kinberg is a veteran of the genre with a pedigree that includes a handful of X-Men movies while David Weil has his established bona fides of his own with the successful turn with the show Hunters.
Having top-notch actors delivering that material is key as well, and the shows that are propelling AppleTV+ to the forefront of smart sci-fi include gifted performers like Rebecca Ferguson, Tim Robbins, Rashida Jones, and David Oyelowo who all star in Silo. In Foundation, a combination of known commodities like Harris and Pace and up-and-coming talents like Leah Harvey and Lou Llobell make the series tick along at a beautiful pace. Invasion literally has talent from around the globe in Farahani, Anderson, Barratt, and Kutsuna. Joel Kinnaman (Altered Carbon, Robocop) leads a talented cast in the parallel reality NASA procedural For All Mankind which has a proven track record over three successful seasons of 10 episodes each.
AppleTV+ Completely Commits to the Audience and the Project
While other streaming services like Netflix seem to be content with pouring everything into a couple of keystone shows, AppleTV+ has proven over the last four years that they are willing to invest longer term with the audience’s best interest in mind. For every Stranger Things, for instance, Netflix appears to be content with throwing away three or four promising shows after just a single season (see 1899), regardless of whether that show has a promising future or not.
Apple as an organization has always been willing to push the envelope with bigger, better, and more innovative products and that attitude has translated into its media streaming department including both television and movies. Their model of focusing on a select group of projects to invest in and produce is proving to be more effective than other streamers who have demonstrated a tendency to throw a lot of things at the audience and hope that one of them takes off like The Witcher and Stranger Things. The commitment to the viewer that Apple has is apparent in the research and development that goes into their programming. They’re just doing it better right now, and that has never been more evident than in the smart science fiction that is thriving under its care.
