Apple TV

Apple TV+ took the opposite bet from everyone else: a small catalogue, spent heavily, released slowly. There is no back library here, no licensed catalogue of old films, no hundred new titles a month. What there is is a short list of very expensive originals — Ted Lasso, Severance, For All Mankind, Slow Horses — produced with a polish that rivals a cinema release.

That makes it a strange service to browse. It is not a place to wander. It is a place to watch one specific, highly-regarded show and then leave until the next one arrives.

Use it for: a marquee original you've heard about, in the best possible picture and sound. Don't expect it for: breadth, back-catalogue, or quantity of any kind.

The pitch that actually matters: it's cheap relative to the others, and it's frequently bundled free with a new Apple device or a family plan. For a single show's run, that is often enough.