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Ars chats with series creators Paul and Chris Weitz about adapting Martha Wells' book series for TV. Built to destroy. Forced to connect. Credit: Apple TV+ In the mood for a jauntily charming sci-fi comedy dripping with wry wit and an intriguing mystery? Check out Apple TV+'s Murderbot, based on Martha Wells' bestselling series of novels The Murderbot Diaries. It stars Alexander Skarsgård as the titular Murderbot, a rogue cyborg security (SEC) unit that gains autonomy and must learn to interact with humans while hiding its new capabilities. (Some minor spoilers below, but no major reveals.) There are seven books in Wells' series thus far. All are narrated by Murderbot, who is technically owned by a megacorporation but manages to hack and override its governor module. Rather than rising up and killing its former masters, Murderbot just goes about performing its security work, relieving the boredom by watching a lot of entertainment media; its favorite is a soap opera called The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. Murderbot the TV series adapts the first book in the series, All Systems Red. Murderbot is on assignment on a distant planet, protecting a team of scientists who hail from a "freehold." Mensah (Noma Dumezweni) is the team leader. The team also includes Bharadwaj (Tamara Podemski) and Gurathin (David Dastmalchian), who is an augmented human plugged into the same data feeds as Murderbot (processing at a much slower rate). Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu) also serves as the team's legal counsel; they are in a relationship with Arada (Tattiawna Jones), eventually becoming a throuple with Ratthi (Akshay Khanna). As in the books, Murderbot is the central narrator, regaling us with his observations of the humans with their silly ways and discomfiting outbursts of emotion. Mensah and her fellow scientists were forced to rent a SEC unit to get the insurance they needed for their mission, and they opted for the cheaper, older model, unaware that it had free will. This turns out to be a good investment when Murderbot rescues Bharadwaj from being eaten by a giant alien worm monster—losing a chunk of its own torso in the process. However, it makes a tactical error when it shows its human-like face to Arada, who is paralyzed by shock and terror, making small talk to get everyone back to safety. This rouses Gurathin's suspicions, but the rest of the team can't help but view Murderbot differently—as a sentient being rather than a killing machine—much to Murderbot's dismay. Can it keep its free will a secret and avoid being melted down in acid while helping the scientists figure out why there are mysterious gaps in their survey maps? And will the scientists succeed in their attempts to "humanize" their SEC unit? Murderbot figured out how to hack its "governor module." The task of adapting Wells' novella for TV fell to sibling co-creators Paul Weitz (Little Fockers, Bel Canto) and Chris Weitz (The Golden Compass, Rogue One), whose shared credits include Antz, American Pie, and About A Boy. (Wells herself was a consulting producer.) They've kept most of the storyline intact, fleshing out characters and punching up the humor a bit, even recreating campy scenes from The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon—John Cho and Clark Gregg make cameos as the stars of that fictional show-within-a-show. Ars caught up with Paul and Chris Weitz to learn more about the making of Murderbot. Ars Technica: What drew you to this project? Chris Weitz: It's a great central character, kind of a literary character that felt really rare and strong. The fact that we both liked the books equally was a big factor as well. Paul Weitz: The first book, All Systems Red, had a really beautiful ending. And it had a theme that personhood is irreducible. The idea that, even with this central character you think you get to know so well, you can't reduce it to ways that you think it's going to behave—and you shouldn't. The idea that other people exist and that they shouldn't be put into whatever box you want to put them into felt like something that was comforting to have in one's pocket. If you're going to spend so much time adapting something, it's really great if it's not only fun but is about something. It was very reassuring to be working with Martha Wells on it because she was very generous with her time. The novella's quite spare, so even though we didn't want to cut anything, we wanted to add some things. Why is Gurathin the way that he is? Why is he so suspicious of Murderbot? What is his personal story? And with Mensah, for instance, the idea that, yes, she's this incredibly worthy character who's taking on all this responsibility on her shoulders, but she also has panic attacks. That's something that's added, but we asked Martha, "Is it OK if we make Mensah have some panic attacks?" And she's like, "Oh, that's interesting. I kind of like that idea." So that made it less alarming to adapt it. Murderbot's clients: a group of scientists exploring the resources of what turns out to be a very dangerous planet. Credit: Apple TV+ Ars Technica: You do play up the humorous aspects, but there is definitely humor in the books. Chris Weitz: A lot of great science fiction is very, very serious without much to laugh at. In Martha's world, not only is there a psychological realism in the sense that people can have PTSD when they are involved in violence, but also people have a sense of humor and funny things happen, which is inherently what happens when people get together. I was going to say it's a human comedy, but actually, Murderbot is not human—but still a person. Ars Technica: Murderbot's favorite soap opera, The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, is merely mentioned in passing in the book, but you've fleshed it out as a show-within-the-show. Chris Weitz: We just take our more over-the-top instincts and throw it to that. Because it's not as though we think that Sanctuary Moon is bad. Ars Technica: As Murderbot says, it's quality entertainment! Chris Weitz: It's just a more unhinged form of storytelling. A lot of the stuff that the bot says in Sanctuary Moon is just goofy lines that we could have given to Murderbot in a situation like that. So we're sort of delineating what the show isn't. At the same time, it's really fun to indulge your worst instincts, your most guilty pleasure kind of instincts. I think that was true for the actors who came to perform it as well. Paul Weitz: Weirdly, you can state some things that you wouldn't necessarily in a real show when DeWanda Wise's character, who's a navigation bot, says, "I'm a navigation unit, not a sex bot." I'm sure there are many people who have felt like that. Also, to delineate it visually, the actors were in a gigantic stage with pre-made visuals around them, whereas most of the stuff [for Murderbot] was practical things that had been built. This is Murderbot's favorite TV show. Apple TV+ John Cho and Clark Gregg cameo as "Captain" and "Lieutenant," respectively. Apple TV+ DeWanda Wise plays a navigation unit in the fictional series-within-a-series. Apple TV+ Jack McBrayer is a crew member in the fictional show-within-a-show. Apple TV+ Ars Technica: In your series, Murderbot is basically a Ken doll with no genitals. The book only mentioned that Murderbot has no interest in sex. But the question of what's under the hood, so to speak, is an obvious one that one character in particular rather obsesses over. Chris Weitz: It's not really addressed in the book, but certainly, Murderbot, in this show as well, has absolutely no interest in romance or sex or love. This was a personable way to point it out. There was a question of, once you've got Alexander in this role, hasn't anybody noticed what it looks like? And also, the sort of exploitation that bot constructs are subjected to in this world that Martha has created meant that someone was probably going to treat it like an object at some point. Paul Weitz: I also think, both of us having kids, you get a little more exposed to ways of thinking that imply that the way that we were brought up thinking of romance and sexuality and gender is not all there is to it and that, possibly, in the future, it's not going to be so strange, this idea that one can be either asexual or— Chris Weitz: A-romantic. I think that Murderbot, among neurodivergent communities and a-romantic, asexual communities, it's a character that people feel they can identify with—even people who have social anxiety like myself or people who think that human beings can be annoying, which is pretty much everyone at some point or another. Ars Technica: It's interesting you mentioned neurodivergence. I would hesitate to draw a direct comparison because it's a huge spectrum, but there are elements of Murderbot that seem to echo autistic traits to some degree. Paul Weitz: People look at something like the autism spectrum, and they inadvertently erase the individuality of people who might be on that spectrum because everybody has a very particular experience of life. Martha Wells has been quoted as saying that in writing Murderbot, she realized that there are certain aspects of herself that might be neurodivergent. So that kind of gives one license to discuss the character in a certain way. That's one giant and hungry worm monster. Apple TV+ Murderbot to the rescue! Apple TV+ Murderbot needs a bit of TLC after his encounter with the worm monster. Apple TV+ Chris Weitz: I don't think it's a direct analogy in any way, but I can understand why people from various areas on the spectrum can identify with that. Paul Weitz: I think one thing that one can identify with is somebody telling you that you should not be the way you are, you should be a different way, and that's something that Murderbot doesn't like nor do. Ars Technica: You said earlier, it's not human, but a person. That's a very interesting delineation. What are your thoughts on the personhood of Murderbot? Chris Weitz: This is the contention that you can be a person without being a human. I think we're going to be grappling with this issue the moment that artificial general intelligence comes into being. I think that Martha, throughout the series, brings up different kinds of sentients and different kinds of personhood that aren't standard human issue. It's a really fascinating subject because it is our future in part, learning how to get along with intelligences that aren't human. Paul Weitz: There was a New York Times journalist a couple of years ago who interviewed a chatbot— Chris Weitz: It was Kevin Roose, and it was Sydney the Chatbot. [Editor: It was an AI chatbot added to Microsoft's Bing search engine, dubbed Sydney by Roose.] Paul Weitz: Right. During the course of the interview, the chatbot told the journalist to leave his wife and be with it, and that he was making a terrible mistake. The emotions were so all over the place and so specific and quirky and slightly scary, but also very, very recognizable. Shortly thereafter, Microsoft shut down the ability to talk with that chatbot. But I think that somewhere in our future, general intelligences are these sort of messy emotions and weird sort of unique personalities. And it does seem like something where we should entertain the thought that, yeah, we better treat everyone as a person. Murderbot isn't human, but it is a person. Credit: Apple TV+ Ars Technica: There's this Renaissance concept called sprezzatura—essentially making a difficult thing look easy. The series is so breezy and fun, the pacing is perfect, the finale is so moving. But I know it wasn't easy to pull that off. What were your biggest challenges in making it work? Chris Weitz: First, can I say that that is one of my favorite words in the world, and I think about it all the time. I remember trying to express this to people I've been working on movies with, a sense of sprezzatura. It's like it is the duck's legs moving underneath the water. It was a good decision to make this a half-hour series so you didn't have a lot of meetings about what had just happened in the show inside of the show or figuring out why things were the way they were. We didn't have to pad things and stretch them out. It allowed us to feel like things were sort of tossed off. You can't toss off anything, really, in science fiction because there's going to be special effects, visual effects. You need really good teams that can roll with moving the camera in a natural way, reacting to the way that the characters are behaving in the environment. And they can fix things. Paul Weitz: They have your back. Chris Weitz: Yeah. Really great, hard work on behalf of a bunch of departments to make things feel like they're just sort of happening and we've got a camera on it, as opposed to being very carefully laid out. Paul Weitz: And a lot of it is trusting people and trusting their creativity, trying to create an environment where you've articulated what you're after, but you don't think their job is better than they do. You're giving notes, but people are having a sense of playfulness and fun as they're doing the visual effects, as they're coming up with the graphics, as they're acting, as they're doing pretty much anything. And creating a good vibe on the set. Because sometimes, the stress of making something sucks some of the joy out of it. The antidote to that is really to trust your collaborators. There's no "I" in team: The scientists teach Murderbot about cooperation. Apple TV+ Gurathin (David Dastmalchian) has his suspicions about Murderbot's odd (for a SEC unit) behavior. Ars Technica: So what was your favorite moment in the series? Paul Weitz: I'd say the 10th episode, for me, just because it's been a slow burn. There's been enough work put into the characters—for instance, David Dastmalchian's character—and we haven't played certain cards that we could have played, so there can be emotional import without telegraphing it too much. Our ending stays true to the book, and that's really beautiful. Chris Weitz: I can tell you my worst moment, which is the single worst weather day I've ever experienced in a quarry in Ontario where we had hail, rain, snow, and wind—so much so that our big, long camera crane just couldn't function. Some of the best moments were stuff that had nothing to do with visual effects or CGI—just moments of comedy in between the team members, that only exist within the context of the cast that we brought together. Paul Weitz: And the fact that they loved each other so much. They're very different people from each other, but they really did genuinely bond. Ars Technica: I'm going to boldly hope that there's going to be a second season because there are more novels to adapt. Are you already thinking about season two? Paul Weitz: We're trying not to think about that too much; we'd love it if there was. Chris Weitz: We're very jinxy about that kind of stuff. So we've thought in sort of general ways. There's some great locations and characters that start to get introduced [in later books], like Art, who's an AI ship. We're likely not to make it one season per book anymore; we'd do a mashup of the material that we have available to us. We're going to have to sit with Martha and figure out how that works if we are lucky enough to get renewed. New episodes of Murderbot release every Friday on Apple TV+ through July 11, 2025. You should definitely be watching. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

"If we fail, humanity will be lost forever. We act, or we lose." Credit: Apple TV+ We have our first teaser for the upcoming third season of Foundation. It's been nearly two years, but the third season of Foundation, Apple TV+'s epic adaptation (or remix) of the Isaac Asimov series, is almost here. The streaming platform released an action-packed teaser of what we can expect from the new ten-episode season: the onset of the Third Crisis, a galactic war, and a shirtless Lee Pace. (Some spoilers for first two seasons below.) Showrunner David S. Goyer took great pains in S1 to carefully set up his expansive fictional world, and the scope only broadened in the second season. As previously reported, Asimov's fundamental narrative arc remains intact, with the series taking place across multiple planets over 1,000 years and featuring a huge cast of characters. Mathematician Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) developed a controversial theory of "psychohistory," and his calculations predict the fall of the Empire, ushering in a Dark Age period that will last 30,000 years, after which a second Empire will emerge. The collapse of the Empire is inevitable, but Seldon has a plan to reduce the Dark Ages to a mere 1,000 years through the establishment of a Foundation to preserve all human knowledge so that civilization need not rebuild itself entirely from scratch. He is aided in this endeavor by his math prodigy protegé Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell). The biggest change from the books is the replacement of the Empire's ruling committee with a trio of Eternal Emperor clones called the Cleons—a genetic triune dynasty comprised of Brother Day (Pace), Brother Dusk (Terrence Mann), and Brother Dawn (Cassian Bilton). Technically, they are all perfect incarnations of the same man at different ages, and this is both the source of their strength as a team and of their conflicts. Their guardian is an android, Eto Demerzel (Laura Birn), one of the last surviving androids from the ancient Robot Wars, who is programmed to protect the dynasty at all costs. The first season ended with a major time jump of 138 years, and S2 focused on the Second Crisis: imminent war between Empire and the Foundation, along with an enemy seeking to destroy Empire from within. The Foundation, meanwhile, adopted the propaganda tactics of religion to recruit new acolytes to the cause. We also met a colony of "Mentalics" with psionic abilities. Goyer stepped down as showrunner after S2 but has reportedly remained very much involved with production. And we're getting another mega time jump for the Third Crisis. Per the official premise: Most of the main cast is returning: Pace, Bilton, Mann, Harris as Llobell, and Birn, as well as Rowena King as legendary mathematician Kalle. Pilou Asbæk plays the Mule, briefly introduced in S2. New S3 cast members include Cherry Jones, Brandon P. Bell, Synnøve Karlsen, Cody Fern, Tómas Lemarquis, Alexander Siddig, and Troy Kotsur. The third season of Foundation premieres on July 11, 2025, on Apple TV+. New episodes will air weekly through September 12, 2025. A few first look images are featured in the gallery below. Jared Harris returns as Hari Seldon. Apple TV+ The Cleons: Brother Dawn (Cassian Bilton), Brother Day (Lee Pact), and Brother Dusk (Terrence Mann). Apple TV+ Laura Birn as the android Demerzel. Apple TV+ Lou Llobell as Gaal. Apple TV+ Pilou Asbæk as the Mule. Apple TV+ Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

"Now that I've hacked my programming, I can do whatever I want... as long as they don't find out." Built to destroy. Forced to connect. Credit: Apple TV+ Alexander Skarsgård stars in the sci-fi thriller Murderbot. A rogue cyborg security (SEC) unit gains autonomy and must learn to interact with humans while hiding its new capability in the trailer for Murderbot, Apple TV+'s new 10-episode sci-fi comedic thriller starring Alexander Skarsgård. It's based on the bestselling book series The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. And judging from the trailer, Murderbot looks like it will strike just the right balance between humor and action. There are seven books in Wells' series thus far. All are narrated by Murderbot, who is technically owned by a megacorporation but manages to hack and override its governor module. Rather than rising up and killing its former masters, Murderbot just goes about performing its security work, relieving the boredom by watching a lot of entertainment media. In the first book, All Systems Red, Murderbot saves a scientific expedition on an alien planet when they are attacked by a giant alien creature. During the ensuing investigation, the cyborg uncovers a plot against the expedition, as well as a second team, by yet another team intent on killing their rivals for some reason. Murderbot joins the humans in foiling those murderous plans but escapes onto a cargo ship at the end rather than give up its hard-earned autonomy. We don't know much about how closely the TV series will hew to Wells' books, but the author said she was "really excited" about the show when she first read the script back in 2021. The few details revealed in the trailer suggest that the first season, at least, will draw heavily from All Systems Red and will have a lighter tone. Per the official premise, "Murderbot is a sci-fi thriller/comedy about a self-hacking security construct who is horrified by human emotion yet drawn to its vulnerable clients. Played by [Alexander] Skarsgård, Murderbot must hide its free will and complete a dangerous assignment when all it really wants is to be left alone to watch futuristic soap operas and figure out its place in the universe." In addition to Skarsgård, the cast includes David Dastmalchian as Gurathin, Noma Dumezweni as Mensah, Sabrina Wu as Pin-Lee, Tattiawna Jones as Arada, Akshaye Khanna as Ratthi, and Tamara Podemski as Bharadwaj. And it looks like John Cho will be making a cameo as a character in Murderbot's favorite in-universe soap opera, The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. The first two episodes of Murderbot premiere on Apple TV+ on May 16, 2025. New episodes will air weekly after that through July 11. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of March): 1,357 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Seth Rogen’s new comedy series is a scathing and celebratory takedown of the entertainment industry’s madness. Though movie studio heads are usually in the mood to pat themselves on the back around this time of year, it is always difficult to take the entertainment industry seriously when you stop to think about the many ridiculous projects that leave you wondering “who asked for this?” IP-based hits like Barbie get studio executives salivating at the idea of replicating their success and crafting new cinematic universes. And even though people are rarely excited when they hear about studios trying to reverse engineer the next Big Pop Cultural Moment™, the cycle continues like clockwork because changing things would require people in positions of power to admit that they were making very silly decisions. The Studio, Apple TV Plus’ brilliant new comedy from co-creators Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory, and Frida Perez, is painfully aware of how ridiculous Hollywood and its heavyweights can seem to the public. This is especially true at a time when fans often like to fancy themselves as armchair executives who understand the business from top to bottom. With its joke-dense story about a legacy studio struggling to survive and a massive cast of celebrity guest stars playing themselves, The Studio easily could have wound up being undercooked and overstuffed. But unlike some of Apple’s other recent attempts at comedy, The Studio is a knockout — one that never seems interested in pulling its punches as it pokes fun at the current state of the entertainment industry. The Studio revolves around Matt Remick (Rogen), an affable film buff who has parlayed his love for the medium into a successful career at Continental Studios. Even though Continental isn’t in the business of making the kinds of thought-provoking, auteur-driven projects Matt loves, he’s happy just to be part of the larger moviemaking process. Matt’s relatively content working alongside his whip-smart assistant Quinn Hackett (Chase Sui Wonders), Continental’s bro-y vice president of production Sal Saperstein (Ike Barinholtz), and trendy marketing head Maya Mason (Kathryn Hahn). But when word gets out that the studio’s eccentric CEO Griffin Mill (Bryan Cranston) is planning to step down and pick a successor, Matt and all of his fellow execs recognize the moment as being primed for some corporate ladder-climbing. Matt’s longtime working relationship with his mentor Patty Leigh (Catherine O’Hara) is one of the factors that puts him toward the top of Mills’ short list of people well-suited to lead Continental into the future. What really secures the new gig for Matt, though, is the speed with which he agrees that Griffin’s plan to produce a big budget movie about the Kool-Aid man is a good idea that will bolster Continental’s bottom line. While The Studio leads with an absurdity that grows increasingly more intense as the season progresses, it never suggests that Matt is anything but genuine in his desire to make Good Movies™. Matt has enough sense to understand that, out of all the different kinds of branded IP that Continental could pour money into, powdered drink mixes don’t lend themselves to cinematic adaptations. But he’s also a people-pleaser of the highest order. And he figures that, with the right script and creative team attached to it, the Kool-Aid man’s story could be spun into a prestigious piece of award-winning cinema. That bright (read: ridiculous) idea is part of how The Studio introduces one of the first of its many celebrity guest cameos — Olivia Wilde, Anthony Mackie, and Ron Howard are just a few who appear as heightened versions of themselves — that help make the show play like a smart and self-aware send up of contemporary Hollywood. Everyone feels like they’re in on the joke as the Kool-Aid project becomes attached to respected directors like Martin Scorsese, who just wants to make a serious drama about the Jonestown massacre. But the show’s funniest moments are borne out of the way Matt’s earnest desire to be seen as an artist rather than a stuffy money guy inspires him to become over-involved on the sets of Continental’s various mid-production projects. Apple Rogen, who co-directs each of The Studio’s 10 episodes with Goldberg, is obviously having a ball as Matt’s quest to put Continental on top while snuffing out fires of his own making transforms the show into a series of tributes to Hollywood classics. When an important film reel goes missing from a set, The Studio becomes a Chinatown-esque noir with Matt at its center as a makeshift hardboiled detective narrating his search into a voice memo on his phone. It’s always clear that Matt has far more pressing matters he should be attending to — for example, the Continental team calls an emergency meeting at one point to figure out whether casting a Black actor to voice the Kool-Aid man is racist — instead of trying to ingratiate himself to celebrities like Greta Lee, who just wants to get their movies over the finish line. But in addition to helping, you understand how much of a well-meaning workaholic Matt is. His insistence on constantly being in the mix sets The Studio up to work as an in-depth look at how the cinematic sausage gets made. Even as it’s inviting you to laugh at Hollywood types for being so extra, you can see The Studio being thoughtfully reflective about the very real work it takes to make movies feel magical. And at a time when Amazon can drop a few billion dollars to buy James Bond, and Netflix can brag about how many people are (supposedly) watching a movie that plays like it was cooked up by an iffy algorithm, The Studio’s madness doesn’t seem all that farfetched. The Studio also stars Keyla Monterroso Mejia and Dewayne Perkins. The series premieres on Apple TV Plus on March 26th. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of February): 874 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

The Information report claims notable losses for Apple's only service in the red. A scene from the Apple TV+ show Severance. Credit: Apple The Apple TV+ streaming service “is losing more than $1 billion annually,” according to The Information today. The report also claimed that Apple TV+’s subscriber count reached “around 45 million” in 2024, citing the two anonymous sources. Ars reached out to Apple for comment on the accuracy of The Information’s report and will update you if we hear back. Per one of the sources, Apple TV+ has typically spent over $5 billion annually on content since 2019, when Apple TV+ debuted. Last year, though, Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly cut the budget by about $500 million. The reported numbers are similar to a July report from Bloomberg that claimed that Apple had spent over $20 billion on Apple TV+’s library. For comparison, Netflix has 301.63 million subscribers and expects to spend $18 billion on content in 2025. In the year preceding Apple TV+’s debut, Apple services chief Eddy Cue reportedly pushed back on executive requests to be stingier with content spending, “a person with direct knowledge of the matter” told The Information. But Cook started paying closer attention to Apple TV+’s spending after the 2022 Oscars, where the Apple TV+ original CODA won Best Picture. The award signaled the significance of Apple TV+ as a business. Per The Information, spending related to Apple TV+ previously included lavish perks for actors and producers. Apple paid “hundreds of thousands of dollars per flight” to transport Apple TV+ actors and producers to promotional events, The Information said, noting that such spending “is common in Hollywood" but "more unusual at Apple.” Apple’s finance department reportedly pushed Apple TV+ executives to find better flight deals sometime around 2023. In 2024, Cook questioned big-budget Apple TV+ films, like the $200 million Argylle, which he said failed to generate impressive subscriber boosts or viewership, per an anonymous “former Apple TV+ employee.” Cook reportedly cut about $500 million from the Apple TV+ content budget in 2024. It’s not hard to see why Apple might want to be more frugal about streaming. Apple TV+ is a service business, which is a revenue category that’s become increasingly important to Apple as customers’ hardware habits shift, including toward buying new iPhones less frequently. Services represented 21 percent of Apple’s revenue in its most recent earnings report. Apple TV+ is reportedly the only part of Apple’s services business that’s not turning a profit. However, sources told The Information that some of Apple’s other services, including Apple Arcade, Apple Music, and Apple News+, are struggling with tiny margins. Limited viewership Apple TV+’s library boasts prestige, but its viewership is scant, hindering its ability to make money. According to Nielsen tracking of streaming content viewed on TVs, Apple TV+ garners less than 1 percent of monthly TV viewership typically, compared to Netflix's 8.2 percent and Max's 1.2 percent in February 2025. Apple has also been criticized for comparatively small marketing efforts for Apple TV+. For example, Apple reportedly spent $14.9 million on commercials for Apple TV+ in October 2019 versus $28.6 million on the iPhone, according to data from iSpot.TV that was reported by The New York Times. $1 billion in losses Apple TV+ being Apple’s only service not turning a profit isn't good, but it’s also expected. Like other streaming services, Apple TV+ wasn't expected to be profitable until years after its launch. An Apple TV+ employee that The Information said reviewed the streaming service’s business plan said Apple TV+ is expected to lose $15 billion to $20 billion during its first 10 years. For comparison, Disney’s direct-to-consumer streaming business had operating losses of $11.4 billion between the launch of Disney+ in fall 2020 and April 2024. Disney’s streaming business became profitable for the first time in its fiscal quarter ending on June 29, 2024. Apple is also worth nearly $4 trillion and made $93.7 billion in net income during its most recent fiscal year. That makes $1 billion in annual streaming losses manageable. Still, streaming is a huge opportunity for Apple, and even streaming newcomers that have struggled in the past are finding ways to turn profits lately. Of course, many of Apple TV+'s rivals are making ends meet with ads and price hikes. Apple TV+ doesn't have ads and hasn't increased prices since the fall of 2023 (which is a long time for a streaming service these days). Still, Apple TV+ is challenged to find a way to stand out in an increasingly competitive streaming market that includes rivals with much bigger libraries that are shifting toward mass, mainstream appeal. Today, The Information reiterated previously made claims that the initial idea behind Apple TV+ wasn’t about having the most streaming subscribers but about making people more attached to the iPhone and Apple ecosystem. However, Apple may be struggling to make good on those plans, too. The tech giant appears to have gaps in its ability to share analysis about which streaming efforts work. Multiple people who worked for Apple TV+ told The Information that they didn't have data on whether or not making the Apple TV app available on non-Apple devices led to more hardware sales, as Apple thought it would. Now Apple has a streaming service with a strong but lesser-known reputation and a notable amount of losses. Apple TV+ will likely keep losing Apple money in the coming quarters, but what’s most important is if Apple can communicate a clear direction for the streaming service—both internally and to streamers. Even the industry is unsure about Apple's streaming intentions. “I don’t understand it beyond a marketing play, but they’re really smart people," Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos said of Apple TV+ to Variety this week. “Maybe they see something we don’t.” Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of February): 874 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Series like Severance are cementing the service’s bona fides, but the same can’t be said for films like The Gorge. Image: Apple Apple TV Plus has steadily become the preeminent home of streaming sci-fi shows, and that reputation has really only grown over time. Silo just wrapped up its thrilling second season, Severance is back after a long hiatus, and promising adaptations of Neuromancer and The Murderbot Diaries are in the works. Even the service’s detective shows can pull off a compelling sci-fi twist. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Apple’s slate of genre films. The offerings are scant, and what is there is pretty dire. If Apple’s sci-fi shows evoke HBO, the movies are more direct-to-DVD. And the predictable and overlong new movie The Gorge doesn’t change that one bit. The premise is at least intriguing. The Gorge stars Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy as two highly regarded snipers who are tasked with a mystery project. The titular gorge exists in an unnamed country, and each year, new soldiers, ones who have no attachments or life outside of their military careers, are recruited to spend 365 days doing… well, they don’t know at first. The gorge is gigantic and filled with fog, and on either side, there are two watch towers, managed in secret by various governments. Eventually, Drasa (Taylor-Joy) and Levi (Teller) learn that their job is to keep whatever is in the gorge from getting out. They’re sort of like military maintenance workers, spending their days checking the miles of barbed wire fence, automatic turrets, and other tools designed to prevent anything from escaping. The two are also expected — and largely forced — to live isolated lives. The gorge and its various protections make it nearly impossible to travel between the watch towers, and communication between the two is strictly forbidden. Naturally, loneliness pushes them to start talking anyways, using high-tech binoculars to share written messages back-and-forth. The Gorge is a movie of two halves. The first plays out almost like a rom-com, with Drasa and Levi playfully discovering each other through music and chess and potato vodka. It’s kind of cute, and also kind of infuriating, because they somehow show almost no interest in the massive mystery right in front of them, even after a close call in which they catch a glimpse of the horrors within. The second half starts out promising, when an obviously stupid decision forces the pair into the mystery. There’s some neat visual design inside of the gorge; it’s a bit like the Upside Down from Stranger Things crossed with a particularly metal Doom level. At one point, the pair fight giant spiders made of skulls. But aside from a few cool creatures, it’s also extremely derivative, not only pulling from Stranger Things and Doom but also Annihilation and Pirates of the Caribbean. That initial promise gives way to something silly, predictable, and not even a little bit fun. Even worse, the two-hour runtime feels extremely padded. There’s a dramatic — and admittedly pretty inventive — escape sequence that would’ve been a cool place to go out on. But instead, it just leads to a whole other act where nothing interesting happens. The ridiculous final twist of what the gorge is makes for prime B-movie material, and even takes some half-hearted stabs at the military-industrial complex, but it all gets lost in an otherwise drab action flick. Bad streaming movies aren’t a new phenomenon, but The Gorge feels particularly disappointing as Apple shapes itself into a destination for science fiction. It’s an out-of-place, bland movie sitting next to adored thrillers like Severance, and it shows that even streaming services intent on chasing awards and prestige can’t seem to get away from derivative slop. The Gorge starts streaming on Apple TV Plus on February 14th. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of January): 487 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

The Apple TV Plus series doesn’t have a lot of runway left as it attempts to finish the complete story in just four seasons. Steve Zahn and Rebecca Ferguson. Image: Apple The second season of Silo — a postapocalyptic thriller on Apple TV Plus — has wrapped up, and the finale was the show at its very best. It was full of dramatic twists, painful sacrifices, brutal fights, beautiful shots of a decayed future, and in its final moments, a tease that shows how much larger and more expansive the story actually is. It left me excited about what’s coming next — but also wary that the show is running out of time to tell the full story. This article contains spoilers for the first two seasons of Silo. Silo takes place far in the future, when the outside world is seemingly uninhabitable and what remains of humanity lives in vast, tightly controlled silos deep underground. The first season followed Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) as she was able to uncover (some of) the truth about the reality of the world and her home’s place within it. It ended with a great cliffhanger as she stepped outside and discovered that her silo, which she believed to be the only remaining place full of human life, was just one of many. Season 2 picked up right after that and explored two concurrent threads. On one side, there was Juliette, whose trek outside uncovered a silo filled with dead bodies. With the help of the long-isolated Solo (Steve Zahn), the apparent sole survivor of a devastating rebellion in Silo 17, she spends almost the entire season attempting to repair a suit so that she can return to her home (Silo 18) and prevent it from facing a similar fate. Meanwhile, tensions are rising in 18, as the rebellion from the lower levels really starts to heat up, throwing everything in disarray. Imagine a civil war contained in a subterranean concrete structure with 144 levels, 10,000 inhabitants, and a series of very specific rules intended to keep everyone alive, and you have an idea of how dire things get. The season 2 finale saw those two threads finally connect in thrilling fashion and then ended with an even greater tease: a look at the world before the silos existed. Which is to say, the present day. Just like the ending of season 1, it showed there is so much more to the story than was first let on. So far, the show has done a great job of managing that balance between questions and answers, keeping me curious about what’s next while still doling out important revelations. Silo is based on a trilogy of books by Hugh Howey, and the first two seasons cover book one, known as Wool. While it’s mostly been a solid adaptation, midway through season 2, there were moments that felt like the show was stretching things out a little longer than they needed to be. The pacing faltered under an unnecessary amount of detail, particularly when it came to Juliette engineering all kinds of solutions to her problem of traveling between silos. What makes that concerning is that Silo only has so much time. Apple has renewed the show for two more seasons, after which it will conclude, meaning that the two remaining seasons need to cover the entirety of the two final novels, Shift and Dust. That won’t be easy. Without spoiling much, I’ll just say that things get much more complex in the later books. There are still the silos we know about and Juliette’s quest to free their inhabitants, plus important details about silos we haven’t seen yet, along with the exceedingly convoluted story of how the world came to be the way it is. These books span not only multiple locations but also multiple time periods. Since Silo spent so much time dithering on book one (which, to be fair, is the most cinematic of the bunch, making it likely the most exciting to adapt), it now has its work cut out for it to squeeze the rest of the postapocalyptic epic into two seasons of television. At its current pacing, I have no idea how the show’s creators are going to make it work in a satisfying way. Then again, this pressure might be a good thing. Maybe with that hard deadline in place, the storytelling will become more efficient and faster-paced, cutting out the fluff to focus on the bigger picture. The show is at its best when it’s racing toward a conclusion, rather than spending a lot of time lingering on the logistics of heat-resistant tape or air pumps. With the end now in sight, the race is on. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

It was another sci-fi-heavy year for Apple’s streaming service. Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images If nothing else, 2024 was the year Apple TV Plus firmly cemented itself as one of the best places to stream science fiction shows. This year, in particular, had a breadth of options, with sci-fi series ranging from cozy mysteries to old-fashioned noirs. Of course, there’s more to the streaming service than just sci-fi — which is where the likes of Pachinko and Disclaimer come in. If you’re looking for something new to watch on Apple TV Plus, here are a few great places to start. Constellation This series stood out among Apple’s other sci-fi shows thanks to its dark tone. Constellation follows an astronaut named Jo (Noomi Rapace), who survives an evacuation of the International Space Station only to return to an Earth seemingly very different from the one she left. It’s the kind of show that leaves you guessing as to what is really real — and as the vibe turns even darker, that question becomes even harder to answer. Dark Matter Based on the novel by Blake Crouch, Dark Matter is yet another story about parallel universes. But don’t tune out yet: even if you’re sick of the multiverse, this is worth checking out. The show follows a physicist named Jason (Joel Edgerton) who manages to kidnap himself. One version of Jason lives a quiet, happy, yet somewhat unfulfilled life as a college professor. But in another world, he’s massively successful yet completely lonely — and will do anything to fix the latter. Disclaimer From Alfonso Cuarón, the director behind Gravity and Children of Men, Disclaimer is a psychological thriller starring Cate Blanchett as a journalist dealing with revelations about her past brought to light by a mysterious manuscript. The show plays with truth and time, as it explores not only the contents of the document but also how it has impacted everyone in the present. Pachinko The first season of Pachinko did an incredible job of adapting Min Jin Lee’s historical drama, while adding its own twist, creating a multilingual narrative that jumps around in time. Season 2 simply continues this, delving further into a family story that spans four generations, though, this time, the story is largely focused on two distinct periods in the family’s history: Osaka in 1945, and Tokyo in 1989. Severance Okay, this isn’t a new series, but with season 2 on the way in January, now is the time to catch up — or refresh yourself — on this twisted workplace thriller. The show is centered on Lumon Industries, a massive tech conglomerate that utilizes an experimental procedure for those working in its mysterious basement. In essence, they sever themselves into two halves: one in the outside world who doesn’t have to worry about what happens at their 9-5, and another trapped in an unending office hellscape. Season 1 set up a number of mysteries, so the new episodes will have a lot to answer for. Silo On the surface, Silo looks like yet another postapocalyptic drama, all gray and brown and dour. But it’s actually an excellent mystery, one that felt small in season 1 but has expanded as the show continues to grow in scale. And the good news is that there’s still a lot of story to explore: the first two seasons only cover the first book in Hugh Howey’s trilogy. Sunny Sunny is a murder mystery with a retrofuturistic twist. When her husband and son go missing following a plane crash, Suzie Sakamoto (Rashida Jones) has almost no information to start investigating, until she comes across the titular bot Sunny (Joanna Sotomura). Of course, Suzie hates machines, and so Sunny becomes something of an odd couple buddy story, as the two try to find out what really happened. Sugar Private investigator John Sugar (Colin Farrell) is in many ways a stereotypical PI: he drives a cool car, always wears a suit, and loves a great whiskey. He’s also the best man around for finding missing people. That all makes Sugar an excellent noir series, but partway through, a big twist turns into an equally interesting piece of science fiction — one that looks to be going to some interesting places in its second season. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of November): 5,298 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Apple has renewed the post-apocalytpic thriller for two more seasons. Image: Apple The end of the end of the world is now in sight. Apple just announced that its post-apocalyptic series Silo, which is in the midst of its second season, has been renewed for two more seasons. That means that season 4 will be the show’s last. Silo first debuted in 2023, and it tells the story of the remnants of humanity, who live in an underground silo where they’re largely safe from the ruined landscape outside. However, things get much more complex very quickly, and the show is laden with mysteries. The series is based on a trilogy of sci-fi novels from Hugh Howey, and Apple says that the final two seasons will tell “the complete story” of the books. (So far, the first book has been split across the first two seasons of the show.) “With the final two chapters of Silo, we can’t wait to give fans of the show an incredibly satisfying conclusion to the many mysteries and unanswered questions contained within the walls of these silos,” showrunner Graham Yost said in a statement. Rebecca Ferguson, who stars in the show and serves as an executive producer, added that “I have always felt passionately about telling the entire story contained within Hugh Howey’s books, so I couldn’t be happier that audiences around the world have enthusiastically embraced the show.” The second season of Silo wraps up on January 17th. That’s the same day that another sci-fi series returns to Apple TV Plus, with season 2 of the workplace thriller Severance. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of November): 5,298 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

The workplace horror series returns to Apple TV Plus in January. And yes, the goats are back. We already knew that the tensions and scares were going to ramp up in season 2 of Severance, and the latest trailer provides a deeper glimpse into what to expect — along with teasing answers to some important (and weird) questions. The show follows a megacorporation called Lumon Industries, which utilizes a new procedure called severance that allows workers to spatially split their brains, creating two selves: one who works for Lumon, and another who lives life on the outside. The new clip shows the return of four Lumon employees — Mark (Adam Scott), Dylan (Zach Cherry), Helly (Britt Lower), and Irving (John Turturro) — who are back in the office after managing to bridge those two different worlds. However, it’s unclear if they’re actually in trouble for their actions; instead, they’ve turned into celebrities of sorts. That doesn’t mean that the vibes are any less unsettling, though, with the always-intense supervisor Milchick (Tramell Tillman) saying things like, “I’m tightening the leash.” More than anything, the new trailer promises answers to some of Severance’s strangest questions. There’s the mystery of what actually goes down in Lumon’s basement, which we’re told “will be remembered as one of the greatest moments on this planet” as well as just what the hell is going on with all of the goats. The trailer also introduces an unexpected new question: how could a child be an office manager? Clearly, there’s a lot going on in season 2, and it’s not too far off now. The new season of Severance starts streaming on January 17th. In the meantime, here are some excellent new posters. Image: Apple Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of November): 5,298 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Apple’s postapocalyptic series returns with a few answers but plenty more questions. Image: Apple The first season of Silo ended on a truly great cliffhanger. The Apple TV Plus series, an adaptation of Hugh Howey’s trilogy of postapocalyptic novels, tells the story of the remnants of humanity, who live deep underground in silos designed to protect them from a poisoned planet. Season 1 had the feeling of a small-town mystery, as mechanic-turned-sheriff Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) stumbled upon a secret that completely upended her worldview. Her quest to uncover that mystery ultimately led her outside of the silo’s protective walls, which is right where the season ended. Silo’s second season picks up in the aftermath and ramps things up by both raising the stakes and raising a big heap of new mysteries to obsess over. This piece contains spoilers, including details of Silo’s season 1 finale. First, a little reminder about how we got here. The show is set at some point in the future, and the silo is home to a carefully controlled population of 10,000 residents, who follow a strict set of rules ostensibly designed to keep them safe from the grim landscape outside. That landscape is ever-present on huge displays inside the silo, and certain residents are punished by being forced to go outside, while everyone else watches as they walk out into the scorched world and, a few moments later, inevitably collapse. But after reluctantly being thrust into the role of sheriff, Juliette learned that the outside might not be so dangerous after all. A complex series of events leads to Juliette herself leaving. But she doesn’t collapse — and her steps over the hill into a vast expanse set the silo aflame. Season 2 picks up right in the moment when she takes those steps, and it creates two parallel threads. On one side, there’s Juliette, who learns that her home is just one of many silos. Eventually, she makes her way to a seemingly abandoned one not far from her own. The path there is littered with dead bodies; she steps over corpses and crunches a few skulls on the journey. The new silo is seemingly empty, and much of it is flooded, though somehow the power is still working. After investigating and meeting the sole survivor (played by Steve Zahn, a wonderful new addition to the cast), she quickly learns that this silo died because of a violent uprising. And what started it? Someone going outside and surviving. So despite all of the initial effort to get to this new place, she sets to work heading right back. Image: Apple It shouldn’t be too surprising, then, that things aren’t going well at home. Tensions are rising as the mayor Bernard (Tim Robbins) uses every trick at his disposal in an attempt to quell a rebellion from the lower levels. Meanwhile, Juliette’s friends — spurred on by her bold steps outside — become rightfully convinced that they’re being lied to about the reality of their world. There are violent clashes on the massive spiral stairs that connect all of the silo’s levels and all kinds of clandestine meetings between different factions. The tight confines of the silo make many of these moments feel claustrophobic and intense. What becomes clear pretty quickly is that the silos aren’t just arks meant to save humanity from a postapocalyptic wasteland. They’re also exceedingly complex psychological experiments. And those two things go hand in hand; every strange or unexpected thing that happens in the silo, it seems, is actually part of an intricate, manipulative plan to keep the population in check and avoid a deadly disaster. That became obvious toward the end of the first season, and the complexity ramps up here. There are multiple layers of deceit and mystery, which are compounded by the fact that nobody in the silo actually knows the full picture. They’re just doing the best they can with the information they have. Even seemingly small revelations — like the quality of a certain kind of tape — can have major implications. For season 2’s first half (I’ve watched five of the 10 episodes so far), this makes for a compelling watch that steadily expands on what made Silo so great initially. It simply expands the scale. And as the mysteries shift and grow, so, too, does the tension. Silo’s second season starts streaming on Apple TV Plus on November 15th. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

"What if everything you know to be true was just one big lie?" Credit: YouTube/Apple TV+ Rebecca Ferguson returns as Juliette in the second season of Apple TV's Silo. Apple TV's dystopian sc-fi drama Silo, based on the trilogy by novelist Hugh Howey, was one of the more refreshing surprises on streaming television in 2023: a twist-filled combination of political thriller and police procedural set in a post-apocalyptic world. We included it in our year-end TV roundup, calling the series "one of the more intriguing shows of the year." The official trailer recently dropped for S2, and it looks like we can expect another suspenseful season full of surprising revelations. (Spoilers for S1 below.) As we wrote in last year's roundup, Silo is set in a self-sustaining underground city inhabited by a community whose recorded history only goes back 140 years, generations after the silo was built by the founders. Outside is a toxic hellscape that is only visible on big screens in the silo's topmost level. Inside, 10,000 people live together under a pact: Anyone who says they want to "go out" is immediately granted that wish—cast outside in an environment suit on a one-way trip to clean the cameras. But those who make that choice inevitably die soon after because of the toxic environment. There are no lifts or pulleys, so the only way to travel the silo's 144 floors is by foot, and there are no lenses above a certain magnification. And to keep the population stable, every woman has a contraceptive implant that can only be removed with permission. The few computers are managed by the IT department, run by Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins). Mechanical keeps the power on and life support from collapsing, and that is where we met mechanical savant Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) at one with the giant geothermal generator that spins in the silo's core. There were hints at what came before—relics like mechanical wristwatches or electronics far beyond the technical means of the silo's current inhabitants, due to a rebellion 140 years ago that destroyed the silo's records in the process. Where we left off The first season opened with the murder of Juliette's lover, George (Ferdinand Kingsley), who collected forbidden historical artifacts, which silo sheriff Holston Becker (David Oyelowo) investigated at Juliette's request. When he chose to go outside, he named Juliette as his successor, and she took on George's case as well as the murder of silo mayor Ruth Jahns (Geraldine James). Many twists ensued, including the existence of a secret group dedicated to remembering the past whose members were being systemically killed. Juliette also began to suspect that the desolate landscape seen through the silo's camera system was a lie and there was actually a lush green landscape outside. In the season finale, Juliette made a deal with Holland: She would choose to go outside in exchange for the truth about what happened to George and the continued safety of her friends in Mechanical. The final twist: Juliette survived her outside excursion and realized that the dystopian hellscape was the reality, and the lush green Eden was the lie. And she learned that their silo was one of many, with a ruined city visible in the background. The official S2 trailer picks up there but doesn't provide many additional details. We see Juliette in her protective suit walking across the desolate terrain toward the other silos, human skulls and bones crunching under her feet. When Juliette's oxygen runs out, she finds shelter and survives, and we later see her trying to enter a silo—whether it's her original home or another one is unclear. Meanwhile, Holland gives an impassioned speech to his silo residents, declaring her a hero for sacrificing herself. But rumors swirl that she is alive, and rebellion is clearly brewing, with Juliette becoming a symbol for the movement. The second season of Silo debuts on Apple TV+ on November 15, 2024. Ferguson has said that there are plans for third and fourth seasons to wrap up the story, which will hopefully be filmed at the same time. Source RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of September): 4,292 news posts

The postapocalyptic series has a lot of questions to answer in its second season. Image: Apple The end of the world just got a little closer. Apple confirmed that the much-anticipated second season of its postapocalyptic series Silo will start streaming on November 15th. Silo premiered last May and was renewed before the first season finished. Apple first teased season 2, alongside the return of Severance, at WWDC 2024. (Severance’s second season will start streaming in January.) Based on the trilogy of novels by Hugh Howey, Silo is set in the distant future and follows the remains of humanity, who live in giant underground bunkers — the titular silos — to avoid the deadly world outside. The season 1 finale ended with a big twist that made it clear there’s a lot more going on than the show initially lets on. It also only covers part of the first book, so it’ll be interesting to see how much of the story the new season covers. Silo’s second season will see returning cast members like Rebecca Ferguson, Tim Robbins, and Common. The show is part of an ever-growing library of science fiction series on Apple TV Plus, which also includes the likes of Sunny, Dark Matter, Constellation, Invasion, and Foundation as well as upcoming series based on Neuromancer and The Murderbot Diaries. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every single day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of June): 2,839 news posts

Sweet news. Another beloved Apple TV Plus show is getting a second season. The streamer announced today that the detective series Sugar, which stars Colin Farrell in the titular role, has been renewed for season 2. It’s not clear yet when the show will return. Sugar debuted earlier this year. And while it started out as a clever story about a private investigator, a big twist midway through the first season — you can read about it here, but (obviously) spoilers abound — pushed it into sci-fi territory, a space Apple has been very successful in. There aren’t many details about the upcoming season, but in a press release, Apple says that “season two will see Sugar back in Los Angeles, taking on another missing persons case as he continues to look for answers surrounding his missing sister.” Sugar joins a handful of other highly anticipated second seasons on Apple TV Plus that, for some reason, also start with an S. The postapocalyptic drama Silo will return on November 15th, while the surreal workplace thriller Severance starts streaming again in January. Source RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of September): 4,292 news posts

Today, Amazon announced that the Apple TV+ service is coming to Prime Video in the US. It will be available as an add-on subscription for $9.99 per month. Apple TV+ will provide access to several popular shows, including Severance, The Morning Show, Shrinking, Hijack, Loot, and Palm Royale, and also hit films such as Wolfwalkers, The Instigators, and more, plus Major League Soccer and Major League Baseball sporting events. Apple TV+ will be available later this month on Prime Video, and Prime members can subscribe to it with no extra apps using their existing Prime Video billing. Users can also cancel the subscription at any time. Similar to Apple TV+, Prime Video already has more than 100 add-on subscription options in the US, through which users can enjoy a wide variety of content across devices using the Prime Video app. Mike Hopkins, Senior Vice President and Head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, said: Eddy Cue, Apple’s SVP of Services, said: Apple TV+ content is known for its high production value. Despite having a relatively small amount of original content, to date, Apple Original films, documentaries, and series have earned 516 wins and 2,308 award nominations. For example, their Ted Lasso show won multiple Emmy awards, and CODA won the Oscar for Best Picture. Source: Amazon Source RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of September): 4,292 news posts

Apple’s new A24-produced dark comedy imagines an impeccably designed near future where humanity’s bugs are robots’ special features. More than yet another sci-fi parable about a future plagued by dangerous robots, Colin O’Sullivan’s 2018 novel The Dark Manual was a lyrical meditation on grieving and the emotions we project onto everyday objects. The book’s premise, prose, and thematic ambivalence about artificially intelligent machines made it feel like the kind of story that could only be adapted as a grim drama. But Apple TV Plus and A24’s Sunny brings a new depth and nuance to O’Sullivan’s story by tempering it with healthy doses of whimsy and animatronic puppetry. Similar to The Dark Manual (which seems to have been recently retitled in anticipation of Apple’s new show), Sunny revolves around Suzie Sakamoto (Rashida Jones), a woman trying to piece her life together following a plane crash that (seemingly) killed her husband Masa (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and their young son Zen (Fares Belkheir). As an American transplant with a limited ability to pick up languages or make new friends, grieving in a near-future Japan is a disconcerting experience for Suzie. Even with her overbearing mother-in-law Noriko (Judy Ongg) constantly at her door, and everyone being connected by their Devices — pillow-like smart gadgets that feel inspired by It Follows’ shell phone — Suzie’s loss leaves her spiraling into a profound loneliness. But as painful as it is living in a house full of memories, what unnerves Suzie most is the unexpected arrival of a domestic homecare robot called Sunny (Joanna Sotomura), who insists that Masa programmed her specifically for the mourning widow before the crash. There’s a pronounced sense of dread running through O’Sullivan’s novel that makes its homebot-filled world feel like a cold, dark place, where the drumbeat of technological progress has convinced many to embrace machines they don’t entirely understand. Jones brings some of that energy to her witheringly acerbic Suzie who, like her book counterpart, does not initially trust Sunny and lashes out at the homebot as it begins taking care of chores. But unlike The Dark Manual’s mechanical servants with their unblinking sensors that shift from a menacing shade of scarlet to blue as they process information, all of Sunny’s robots are presented as smiling, friend-shaped beings whose cartoony designs are reflections of a larger shift toward aesthetically playful technology. Had Sunny been created entirely out of CGI, the energy between Sotomura and Jones might not play so dynamically as the homebot and her owner snipe at each other in the show’s first few episodes. But because Sunny is an animatronic puppet whose animated facial expressions were real-time recreations of Sotomura’s, there’s a realness to their interactions that makes them both feel like weightier (in the narrative sense) characters as a result. Through Sunny and Suzie’s caregiver / caretaker relationship, Sunny taps into something very real about how societies turn to technology to deal with personal and communal issues. And yet the silliness of Sunny being a googly-eyed puppet who we never see (but presumably can) go up stairs is a huge part of how the show also manages to work as a comedy that’s really about its two leads trying to solve a pulpy mystery. While few of Sunny’s twists and turns are entirely novel, the show’s commitment to making its world feel like a plausible vision of a future where people’s gadgets work to address their needs is fantastic. In place of the book’s allusions to tensions with North Korea, Sunny puts more emphasis on yakuza boss Hime (You) and the shadowy community of people illegally jailbreaking homebots to perform functions they’re not technically supposed to be able to do. Some of Sunny’s most fascinating worldbuilding comes by way of its villains and their fixation with the fabled Dark Manual key to turn homebots into murder machines. But as Suzie and Sunny’s intrigue pulls them deeper into Japan’s underworld, you can feel Apple setting Sunny up to continue growing beyond its first season in a way that seems like it could lead to too much of a good thing. Sunny also stars annie the clumsy, Jun Kunimura, and Shin Shimizu. The show’s first two episodes hit Apple TV Plus on July 10th. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every single day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of June): 2,839 news posts

The new adventure series premieres on July 24th. In the official trailer for Time Bandits, the new Apple TV Plus series from Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement seems to revel in every bit of the dreamlike pseudo-reality of the 1981 film it’s based on. The show focuses on a young kid named Kevin (Kal-El Tuck) who finds a time portal in his room and links up with a band of time-hopping thieves. It’s set to premiere on July 24th for Apple TV Plus subscribers and runs for 10 episodes. While the series is an adaptation of Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits, the trailer makes it clear it’s also its own thing with different characters, time periods, and situations. The show controversially replaced the Time Bandits themselves, originally played entirely by a cast of little people, with actors like Lisa Kudrow and Rune Temte. But the outfits and fantastical environments look similar, if much cleaner than Gilliam’s cluttered (in a good way) visual style, and the whimsy seems largely intact. Apple TV Plus has had plenty of other genre shows lately, from the multiverse mystery Dark Matter to the detective series Sugar. It also adds to the service’s ever-growing library of high-budget sci-fi content. Time Bandits stands out as a licensed property, though, something that Apple has mostly avoided doing for its productions. Besides Tuck, other Time Bandits stars include Lisa Kudrow, Rune Temte, Tadhg Murphy, Roger Jean Nsengiyumva, and Kiera Thompson. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every single day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of June): 2,839 news posts

Apple TV+ series have made an impact, but its films have been less successful lately. Apple seeks to continue to augment its library of original films like Argylle with films from other studios. Apple TV+ has carved a niche for itself with strong original programming, and while it's still far behind the likes of Netflix in terms of subscribers, it has seen a fairly strong initial run. To build on that, Apple is talking with major studios about ways to complement its slate of original programming with films from other companies in order to expand and extend the service's appeal. That's according to Bloomberg reporters Lucas Shaw and Thomas Buckley, who cite people familiar with Apple's workings. Those sources say Apple is "having discussions" with more than one large film studio about bringing more movies to the service. Apple previously experimented with this by licensing around 50 movies and making them available on the service for limited runs over the past several months. That experiment seems to have gone well, leading Apple to begin laying the groundwork for expanding on that. That test run was just in the United States. Bloomberg claims the focus this time is international, with the possibility of new films not just in the US but in other regions, too. Hollywood studios have reportedly been anticipating this move. As you may have noticed amid the numerous subscription service price hikes, media companies have begun putting greater emphasis on profitability after the conclusion of a long period where subscriber growth at any cost was the goal. Licensing deals like this can help with that new goal. It's worth noting that while Apple has found some big successes in terms of series (Ted Lasso, Severance, The Morning Show) it has struggled to make as much of an impact with its movies. Despite big stars and budgets, the films have not always made as much cultural impact as the shows, beyond some award wins. That means that bringing in films from studios with a more proven record can be a win-win: It will help Apple bolster the TV+ subscription service while generating revenue for film studios that are struggling to keep up in the new era. Services like TV+ are a growing part of Apple's business, which has historically been focused on hardware sales. In the second quarter of its 2024 fiscal year, the services bucket accounted for $23.9 billion in quarterly revenue, which is more than half the revenue generated by iPhone hardware sales. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every single day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of June): 2,839 news posts

The film starts streaming on Apple TV Plus on November 3rd — and it only has a little bit of body horror. Fingernails, a sci-fi romcom coming to Apple TV Plus from director Christos Nikou, imagines a future where one very specific technology has changed the world. In this timeline, scientists have figured out how to conclusively determine if two people are in love. This upends relationships as we know them, with couples sticking steadfastly to the results of the test; if they get a negative result, they end up splitting up. It’s a cute conceit for exploring the ways relationships can grow stale or change over time, and Fingernails builds on that with its darkly comedic vibe. It also has a surprising amount of body horror — the nature of which you might be able to glean from the title. The film centers on Anna (Jessie Buckley), a teacher who is in a long-term — and test-approved — relationship with her boyfriend Ryan (Jeremy Allen White). They’ve reached the comfortable phase of their relationship; things aren’t exactly exciting anymore, but it could be worse than cuddling on the couch and watching documentaries every night. Plus, science has assured them that they’re meant to be together. Things take a turn when Anna starts a new job at The Love Institute, which not only performs the aforementioned love tests but also offers a series of lessons to prep couples for success. For reasons that aren’t made entirely clear, she keeps this new gig a secret from Ryan. The Love Institute is like a business founded on the principles of Nora Ephron films. The waiting room is consistently filled with the sound of falling rain because it induces romance, while the lesson plans involves sniffing out your partner in a crowd, shocking yourself when they leave the room, and watching a steady diet of Hugh Grant movies together. Oh, and then there’s the test itself. If you haven’t guessed yet, it works like this: researchers pull off a fingernail from each person, and then place them in a giant retrofuturistic microwave to be analyzed. The whole thing only takes a few minutes but leaves a physical reminder that the test took place. Despite all of the fingernail pulling going on, love blossoms between Anna and her new co-worker Amir (Riz Ahmed) as they spend their days trying to help couples survive the test. Now, I have a few questions about the world of Fingernails. It’s never really made clear why people put so much stock in this test. Married couples divorce after a negative result; families are broken up because of a simple test. Some people take it multiple times to be sure despite the fact that — and it bears repeating — you have to have a fingernail pulled off as part of the test. In the case of Anna, as she slowly becomes infatuated with Amir, she questions her feelings even more because science says she should be with Ryan. It’s a big thing to not explain because the test is the motivation behind pretty much everything that happens in the movie. You need to put those questions out of your mind to fully enjoy Fingernails — it’s also good to not overthink when exactly the movie takes place, with its futuristic love test and otherwise very retro setting, one that seems completely devoid of smartphones. But it’s worth it because it’s the kind of slow-burning, darkly funny romance that’s pretty rare. The gruesomeness of the test is contrasted by the ridiculousness of the love training; at one point, a researcher wonders aloud if setting a theater on fire during a Hugh Grant marathon would inspire an even deeper connection. And the stars at the heart of the love triangle all put in strong, believable performances that — despite a seemingly predictable setup — had me guessing how things would finally end up. Ultimately, the worldbuilding, vague as it is, serves largely as window dressing for a straightforward yet well-crafted story about how relationships evolve over time. It’s sweet and funny and occasionally grotesque — the rare romantic comedy that might make you wince. Fingernails starts streaming on Apple TV Plus on November 3rd. This review is based on a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. Source

The movie stars Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed, and Jeremy Allen White and starts streaming on November 3rd. Just yesterday, I included Fingernails in a list of movies from the Toronto International Film Festival that would be streaming very soon. And now, we have our very first trailer for the sci-fi romcom, which is coming to Apple TV Plus. Directed by Christos Nikou, Fingernails is set in a sort of retrofuturistic world where scientists have developed a test that can prove that two people are (or aren’t) in love. It then uses this oddball premise to set up a love triangle between its trio of stars — Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed, and Jeremy Allen White — as they attempt to navigate a world where a machine can determine whether a relationship lives or dies. It’s a quiet, dark comedy with a touch of body horror — the test itself involves yanking off a fingernail from each person. We’ll have a full review of Fingernails very soon; in the meantime, you can check out this trailer ahead of its streaming premiere on November 3rd. Source

The series is based on a trilogy of novels about the last of humanity living deep underground. Apple has another dark drama coming to its streaming service. Today, the company showed off the first teaser trailer for Silo, a dystopian series based on the novels by Hugh Howey. It starts streaming on Apple TV Plus on May 5th. The show follows the story of the last 10,000 people left on Earth, who live deep underground in the titular silo to avoid the poisonous surface world. However, the origin of the silo itself remains a mystery and, as the official description explains, “any who try to find out face fatal consequences.” The show stars Rebecca Ferguson, Common, Harriet Walter, Chinaza Uche, Avi Nash, David Oyelowo, Rashida Jones, and Tim Robbins. Silo joins a growing list of dramas on Apple TV Plus that start with the letter S: it’s now part of a lineup that includes See, Severance, Servant, Suspicion, and Surface. The 10-episode-long first season of Silo will premiere in May with two episodes, followed by weekly releases every Friday. Apple’s dystopian drama Silo starts streaming in May

The show starts streaming on February 21st. Apple is kicking off the week with the first trailer for its sci-fi series Constellation. The show stars Noomi Rapace as an astronaut who “returns to Earth after a disaster in space — only to discover that key pieces of her life seem to be missing.” In the trailer, this appears to manifest itself as a series of mysteries — a strange piano, an unknown voice on a tape recorder — along with plenty of unsettling hallucinations. The rest of the cast includes Jonathan Banks, James D’Arcy, Julian Looman, William Catlett, and Barbara Sukowa, and the series is being helmed by creator and writer Peter Harness (Doctor Who). Constellation premieres with three episodes on February 21st, and new episodes stream on Wednesdays after that. (Between this and Netflix’s Spaceman, it’s looking to be a fun few weeks for fans of haunted astronauts.) The show is part of a steady ongoing push into sci-fi for Apple TV Plus, which includes the likes of Foundation, Invasion, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Silo, For All Mankind, Hello Tomorrow, and Severance. Source

The second season of Apple TV Plus’ workplace thriller has just started filming Gwendoline Christie Photo by Gareth Cattermole / Getty Images for BFI The second season of Severance has just started filming, and to mark the milestone, we have some new details on the cast. As Deadline reports, there are quite a few fresh faces joining the offices of Lumon Industries for season 2. That includes: Gwendoline Christie, Bob Balaban, Merritt Wever, Alia Shawkat, Robby Benson, Stefano Carannante, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, and John Noble. That’s a lot of handshakes (available upon request). It’s still not clear when the next season of Severance is due to hit Apple TV Plus; it was first announced in April, just ahead of the season 1 finale. We also have essentially no details on what to expect in season 2, though today, Apple did release this photo of star Adam Scott’s face on Twitter: There might be some hints in that image, or the production staff might just really praise Kier. It’s unclear at this time. Severance has been one of Apple’s biggest streaming hits, garnering a dedicated audience for its unsettling workplace horror story and deliciously strange gadgets. Severance adds Gwendoline Christie, Alia Shawkat, and more for season 2

The streamer’s lineup of science fiction just keeps growing. William Gibson. Photo by Elisabetta A. Villa/WireImage Another sci-fi adaptation is making its way to Apple TV Plus. The streamer announced that it’s adapting William Gibson’s seminal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer into a 10-episode series. Graham Roland (Lost, Jack Ryan) will serve as showrunner, while JD Dillard (Utopia) will direct the first episode. (Both will also be executive producers on the series.) That’s about all we know right now. There are no details on when the series might start streaming or who will star. In a press release, Apple said that the show “will follow a damaged, top-rung super-hacker named Case who is thrust into a web of digital espionage and high stakes crime with his partner Molly, a razor-girl assassin with mirrored eyes aiming to pull a heist on a corporate dynasty with untold secrets.” This is also not the first adaptation of Neuromancer, which originally came out 1984 as Gibson’s debut novel. Its been turned into a video game, a graphic novel, and is reportedly being made into a movie as well. (In 2022, Amazon adapted another Gibson novel — The Peripheral — into a live-action streaming series.) Whenever it does premiere, Neuromancer will join an ever-growing lineup of sci-fi on Apple TV Plus. So far that has included series like Foundation, For All Mankind, Silo, Invasion, Monarch, and Constellation, which premiered earlier this month. An adaptation of Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries is also in the works, starring Alexander Skarsgård. Source

The second season has faster pacing, more linear storytelling, and bits of levity. Lee Pace as the latest incarnation of Brother Day, one of a trio of ruling Cleons in Apple TV's Foundation. Apple TV+ We're now two episodes into the second season of Foundation, Apple TV's epic sci-fi series adapted—or remixed, per showrunner David Goyer—from the seminal series of stories by Isaac Asimov, and it's shaping up to be even better than its first. Goyer took great pains in S1 to carefully set up his expansive fictional world, and the scope has only broadened in the second season. Goyer describes the new season as more emotional and romantic, with a bit more humor—or at least moments of levity—and faster paced now that the main characters and their key relationships have been well established. "Now it's a bit like jazz," he said. "We can riff on our creation and start to move the chess pieces around and create alliances or unusual pairings that didn't exist last season. Audiences have a certain expectation of how things are going to unfold, and part of the fun is subverting those expectations." The narrative is also more linear, with fewer time jumps forward and back—just the occasional traditional flashback. (Major spoilers for S1 below. Some minor spoilers for S2 but no major reveals.) As previously reported, Asimov's fundamental narrative arc remains intact, with the series taking place across multiple planets over 1,000 years and featuring a huge cast of characters. Mathematician Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) developed a controversial theory of "psychohistory," and his calculations predict the fall of the Empire, ushering in a Dark Ages that will last 30,000 years, after which a second Empire will emerge. The collapse of the Empire is inevitable, but Seldon has a plan to reduce the Dark Ages to a mere 1,000 years through the establishment of a Foundation to preserve all human knowledge so that civilization need not rebuild itself entirely from scratch. He is aided in this endeavor by his adoptive son and right-hand man, Raych Foss (Alfred Enoch), and his math prodigy protegé, Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell). The biggest change from the books is the replacement of the Empire's ruling committee with a trio of Eternal Emperor clones called the Cleons—a genetic dynasty. Brother Day (Lee Pace) is the primary ruler, with Brother Dusk (Terrence Mann) serving in an advisory/legacy role. Meanwhile, Brother Dawn (played as a child by Cooper Carter and as a teenager by Cassian Bilton) is being groomed to take over as the new Brother Day. Technically, they are all perfect incarnations of the same man, at different ages, and this is both the source of their strength as a team and of their conflicts. Their guardian is an android, Eto Demerzel (Laura Birn), one of the last surviving androids from the ancient Robot Wars, who is programmed to protect the dynasty at all costs. Reviews of the first season ranged from generally positive to mixed, which isn't surprising considering the unwieldy source material and how much exposition and world-building was required. There were inevitably diehard fans of the books who objected to the creative liberties Goyer implemented. Nonetheless, it was an Ars favorite. "This series respects Asimov's sweeping visionary ideas without lapsing into slavish reverence and over-pontification," I wrote in my 2021 review of the first season. "That said, how much you like Goyer's vision might depend on how much of a stickler you are about remaining faithful to the source material." Ars Senior Technology Editor Lee Hutchinson loved the series, too, declaring Foundation to be "a fascinating tale that was told well, with a cast I enjoyed watching, and with a visual language that really connected with something in my head." That first season ended with a major time jump of 138 years, as Gaal Dornick woke up in a cryopod on her former home planet of Synnax, now deserted, only to meet Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey), the former leader of Terminus who turned out to be Gaal's daughter. In the interim, the Foundation has flourished, growing from about 5,000 people to more than 50,000 and expanding its numbers to various outposts in the Outer Reach. There have also been several generations of Cleons. As the second season begins, tensions are rising as the current Cleons' iron rule on Trantor begins to unravel, with war imminent between Empire and the Foundation. That war is the Second Crisis, along with an enemy seeking to destroy Empire from within. The Foundation, meanwhile, has adopted the propaganda tactics of religion to recruit new acolytes to the cause. And we'll also meet a colony of "Mentalics" with psionic abilities, only hinted at in the first season. Let's take a closer look at where our primary players find themselves at the start of the second season. Jared Harris reprises his role as Hari Seldon—or rather, a "digital ghost" and a second digital copy of the original Hari's consciousness. Apple TV Hari Seldon Seldon, who set all these events in motion with his controversial predictions, was murdered in S1. At least, his human body was killed. A digital version of him emerged on Terminus in the S1 finale. Goyer describes his current incarnation as a "digital ghost" (referred to as Dr. Seldon). There is also a digital copy of Hari's consciousness uploaded into the hilt of a knife that traveled with Gaal in her escape pod, and the two incarnations are distinct personalities. The latter copy of Hari was conscious the entire time Gaal was in cryosleep, "which basically would drive anyone permanently insane," said Harris. "It's not deliberate on Gaal's part, but her interventions have knocked Hari's plan seriously off course." That could have implications for the Second Crisis. Those intervening years have inevitably altered Hari's relationship with Gaal, although Harris insists the two are more alike than either might care to admit. "Both have brilliant minds and both think they're the smartest people in the room, so there's an arrogance about them," he said. The Cleon dynasty—Brother Dawn (Cassian Bilton), Brother Day, and Brother Dusk (Terrence Mann)—is in decline. The Cleons The Cleons might still rule Trantor, but a lot has changed since we learned in S1 that these so-called "pure" clones of the original Cleon actually aren't that pure: a rebel faction managed to introduce mutations or variables in their genetic code, which rather weakens the mythology of the Genetic Dynasty—and hence the legitimacy of their rule. Pace's Brother Day—the 18th in the cycle—is most definitely not a mere carbon copy of Cleon the First. "In the first season, we tried to establish this imperishable permanence, that they believe they're a continuation of the same man," Pace told Ars. "The Cleon I play in S2 is determined to assert his individuality. He knows in his heart that he's an individual, and he's going to write his own path, determine his own destiny. It takes courage to break free of this system that is extremely rigid and dangerous. But his emperor's ego makes him think he can do anything." This new Brother Day has no illusions about who or what he is—so much so, that he plans to marry Queen Sareth (Ella-Rae Smith) of Cloud Dominion and produce natural-born heirs, effectively ending the line of clone emperors. "There's no doubt in his mind that he's just a man in the role of a god," said Pace. "He feels entitled to it, but he doesn't really want this job. It's the ego that is so interesting about him. He believes that he's the hero of his story, but there is a very vulnerable belly of failure. The consequence of failure, his humiliation, and the consequences for the rest of galaxy in turn. What Hari Seldon predicted is happening and everyone can feel it. The time is now. That thrilling meeting with destiny is interesting to me." Goyer prefers to think of the Cleons as antagonists rather than bona fide villains, despite the violence they routinely unleash on those who try to defy them. The complexity of their individual selves and their relationships to each other was one of the most compelling storylines in S1. "I've never encountered a character like [Day]," said Pace. "He's deformed in the way that he thinks. He's a deformed man. He doesn't understand what love is, but he needs love. He's not actually a very sophisticated thinker. He's instinctual, primitive, in the way he thinks. The solution to every problem, when he feels overwhelmed, is violence." One of the seminal moments in S1 is an exchange between Brother Dawn and Demerzel after a brutal execution. A troubled Dawn asks, "How often do we choose this?" Demerzel tells him that he always chooses this. Day's choices also make things challenging for Brothers Dawn and Dusk. "The wheels are coming off the wagon, and they're definitely scrambling to Day, because he's in charge to try and figure out what's going to be the best course of action," said Mann. Dusk will also get a bit of romantic action this season, in the form of Enjoiner Rue (Sandra Yi Sencindiver), an aide to Queen Sareth. As for Day, in S1 he was very much a tragic figure, undone by loving the wrong woman. This latest incarnation is "the inversion of that," per Bilton, who thinks the question of nature versus nurture is especially relevant in S2 as to why the Cleons are who they are. The android Eto Demerzel (Laura Birn) is conflicted about her programming. Apple TV Eto Demerzel Goyer deliberately made Demerzel's development as a character more of a slow burn: a silent, omnipresent observer, devoted solely to the welfare of the Cleons, whose own inner life up until now has been a bit of a cipher. "I think it's fascinating that every time there's a new Cleon, it's like an innocent baby," Birn told Ars. "She has to teach them everything. She controls them. But she is controlled by them also. They enslave her. So I think she has a twisted, very special relationship with all of them, and she guides them in a way that she thinks is needed for each of them. They are different, even though they are the same man. With Cleon the 18th, she has to use quite extreme ways to control him because he's drifting too far." Thematically, the character of Demerzel evokes the age-old tension between consciousness and free will, as well as a handy lens through which to explore Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics in S2: a robot may not hurt a human or allow them to come to harm through inaction; a robot must obey human orders unless an order conflicts with the first rule; and a robot must protect its own existence unless doing so conflicts with the first and second laws. We only caught glimpses in S1 of Demerzel experiencing conflicting impulses regarding her programmed purpose—to protect the Cleon dynasty at all costs—and those become amplified in the second season. "There's a seed that's growing in her mind," said Birn. "She's troubled by all the things that she has to do to defend the genetic dynasty. She's not able to fight that programming, but she's able to feel the consequences of her actions. This is driving her to a new direction that is dangerous for her as well. This idea of Cleon the 18th marrying and wanting to end the genetic dynasty would mean freedom for her. But then again, she must fight against that with every particle of her being." Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey) and Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) explore their mother/daughter dynamic on Synnax. Apple TV Gaal Dornick and Salvor Hardin Gaal began S1 as a wide-eyed young woman with a mathematical gift who traveled to Trantor from her home planet, Synnax, to study with Hari Seldon. She was banished to Terminus with him by the Cleons, along with followers of Seldon who believed his predictions for the future would come to pass. When Hari was murdered en route by her lover Raych, Gaal was jettisoned into space and found herself on a ship called the Raven, which Hari had intended for Raych. Eventually, she found her way back to Synnax. Llobell said that S2's Gaal would be much more in control after her long cryosleep. And per Goyer, she'll have to come to terms with how to be a mother to a daughter she never knew she had. Salvor, meanwhile, learned she was adopted in S1 and has just come face to face with her biological mother, Gaal—who is younger than she is, thanks to the vagaries of interstellar travel—on a remote and deserted planet. The two of them will be working through the complications of their relationship over the course of the second season, as well as exploring their unusual abilities (Gaal can see into the future; Salvor can see into the past). "The writers gave us opportunities to be vulnerable with each other and, in the case of Salvor, to find moments of an almost child-like need for connection," Harvey told Ars. "Sometimes when we see kids have tantrums, it all comes from this need to connect and to communicate." Harvey and Llobell happen to be practically unbeatable in charades, per Harvey, and they used that real-world bond while playing off each other in S2. Toughness and iron resolve in the face of adversity were hallmarks of Salvor's character in S1, so it's nice to see a more vulnerable side come through in this new season, although for Harvey, both elements have always influenced their performance. "I think that being tough means you have to be vulnerable," they said. "You can't have light without dark, you can't have strength without weakness. Being vulnerable is part of that character that makes her unique, as well as relatable. We all get scared. But we all have to keep going." Harvey also found their dance training invaluable when training for the intense choreographed fight scenes. Queen Sareth of Cloud Dominion (Ella-Rae Smith) isn't exactly thrilled about a potential union with Brother Day. Apple TV There are also a number of new faces this season, most notably Smith's Queen Sareth, whose family was killed under mysterious circumstances—and who is not the malleable, easily controlled potential bride Day assumes she is. Also joining the S2 cast season are Isabella Laughland as Brother Constant, a novice in the Foundation's Church of the Galactic Spirit, and Kulvinder Ghir as High Cleric Poly Verisof, who travel the Outer Reaches seeking converts. In addition, Holt McCallany plays Warden Jaegger Fount; Rachel House plays Tellem Bond; Nimrat Kaur plays Yanna Seldon; Ben Daniels plays Bel Riose; and Dimitri Leonidas plays a young trader named Hober Mallow, who will be familiar to readers of the novels. And, of course, the series will continue to explore Asimov's various themes more deeply, which Goyer considers timeless. "The only constant is change," he said. "I think that Foundation is probably more relevant today than it was when Asimov was first writing it. Foundation is about people studying history, the patterns of society, and realizing that so many of the things that we think are unique challenges each generation, humanity has dealt with them again and again and again. And if we can learn from those mistakes, we can be better suited to face those challenges in the present and the future." New episodes of Foundation air every Friday through September 15, 2023, on Apple TV+. Source