Apple shows Keene eye for quality over quantity
Black Bird
The number of subscribers to Apple TV+ is dwarfed by those who pay for Sky or Netflix. Only 1.5 million people in the UK use the service, which is less than 10% of Netflix.
While Netflix pump out TV shows daily, Apple seems to concentrate on quality; things like The Daily Show, Severance or Pachinko.
In a time where we’ve perhaps got a bit of post-pandemic telly fatigue, this is perhaps a wise approach. Who’s got time to gorge on average television? We’re no longer locked up with not much choice but to watch all of Friends, again.
Taron Egerton is, however, locked up in eerie prison thriller Black Bird, which is a true story and possibly Apple TV+’s best work yet.
He plays Jimmy Keene, a convicted drug dealer who is offered the chance to enter a maximum-security prison for the criminally insane and befriend a suspected serial killer to glean some secrets from him.
Keene isn’t an especially sympathetic character. He’s vain and selfish, yet Egerton puts in an extraordinary performance over six episodes: I can’t think of another actor who’s managed to pull off both arrogant and terrified in the same moment.
The danger around Keene as he draws closer to the deeply creepy Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser) almost becomes as claustrophobic as the cell in which he compulsively exercises.