Apple TV+ hasn’t delivered a huge amount of content in its first few months, and what it has delivered has been, ahem, somewhat mixed. The reviewers have not been as sold on the content as much as they swoon over the hardware. And now, with a pandemic sweeping the globe, the economy gone to the dogs and no one leaving home the good people at Apple TV+ have decided to cheer us up. Er, no they haven’t.
In the Los Angeles Times, Lorraine Ali is not impressed, thinking Defending Jacob “is a measured and duplicative story that feels like a collection of clips from other well-produced, but ultimately forgettable, crime narratives.” It’s a heart-rending tale of two successful parents whose lives are ripped apart when their 14-year-old son is accused of murder.
In The Guardian, Lucy Manganpraises the performances of Chris Evans and Michelle Dockery and says the show is marked out by “its detailed, intimate portrayal of a family under pressure, as the parents become pariahs in the town and doubts about Jacob’s innocence erode their resilience from within.” The New York Times’s Mike Halethinks there’s not a lot wrong with it, saying that writer Mark Bomback “has constructed an entertaining psychological thriller that takes some clever turns”, but it’s just too damn long: it “has great ingredients, but the portion size is off.”
Wiith Defending Jacob Apple TV+ have released a story that can only make us think the real world isn’t so bad after all. We are not sure if that’s a good thing, and we’re also not sure you should grab an Apple TV+ sub on the basis of this show.
Defending Jacob first shown April 2020. You can watch the trailer by pressing play on the show image, or by clicking here.
