Everybody is familiar by now with the strategy of presidential campaigns in the run-up to the first of three head-to-head debates in the final days of the race. It’s when campaign surrogates try to dramatically amp up expectations about the other side (“Our guy will do good to just still be standing at the end”) so that their candidate looks even better after they exceed those expectations. It’s something of a game, in other words — one that not everybody believes in playing with the press. Apple appears to be following a similar path with Apple TV+.
Ahead of its launch next month, the company has decided to go ahead and try to raise expectations sky-high for the service. Take See, the new Jason Momoa-led series coming to Apple TV+, which presents a dystopian future of humanity in which the gift of sight is essentially wiped out.
In the new issue of Emmy magazine, Apple vice presidents Jamie Erlicht and Zack van Amburg give an interview about See in which they rave about the series: “Can it be as epic as, say, a Game of Thrones? We answer that question early on with a resounding yes!”
Is that a too-lofty description for the show to live up to, comparing it to one of the most celebrated TV series in modern memory? Maybe, maybe not. But it does follow similar hype from Momoa himself, who in two separate Instagram posts describes the series as “the greatest” show he’s ever worked on, which is a roundabout way of saying it’s better than Game of Thrones. It’s easy to dismiss this as an overeager bit of promotion in advance of a new shoe on a likewise new and untried streaming service — but there’s one additional wildcard in the mix that makes us add “Not so fast” to anyone who wants to pooh-pooh this.
That wildcard is See creator and writer Steven Knight, who’s also the creator of what we would argue is one of the best TV series showing right now anywhere, across any streaming service. That show is Peaky Blinders, a British gangster drama streaming in the US on Netflix, and without getting off on too much of a tangent, we are going on the record here and now: Steven’s hand in creating See makes it worth checking out for that reason alone.
Of course, for those Emmy magazine readers who aren’t moved by the Game of Thrones comparison, maybe the trial voucher included with the magazine will spur them to sign up for Apple TV+ and check out See:
As a reminder, Apple TV+ launches November 1, starting at $4.99/month.
