By now, we all know the formula for Apple TV+’s drama series. Big, splashy productions meet top-tier casting, while no expense is spared on making the finished product look anything less than perfect. All of these elements come together in epic fashion for shows like For All Mankind, Pachinko, and The Morning Show — while, sometimes, Apple manages to pull that combination off so spectacularly that you kind of forget you’re looking at a TV series at all. Exhibit A: Apple’s forthcoming new series, Disclaimer.
Let’s start with the obvious.
This psychological thriller coming on Oct. 11, based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Renée Knight, is directed by Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón. To say that everything he does is a treat to watch would be the understatement of the year. Cuarón, of course, directed everything from 1998’s dreamy Great Expectations to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Gravity, and Roma — those last two winning him Best Director Oscars.
Moving to the cast, the inclusion of Disclaimer star Cate Blanchett is almost always a win — “almost” being the key word here, because even Galadriel, it seems, is not immune to embarrassingly bad “how did that even get made?” films like Borderlands. Still, it’s incredible to see her in a role for a streamer like this one, where she plays an acclaimed journalist named Catherine Ravenscroft, who’s built a career out of investigating the transgressions and misdeeds of others.
But, as Apple explains in the Disclaimer synopsis, “when (Catherine) receives a novel from an unknown author, she is horrified to realize she is now the main character in a story that exposes her darkest secrets.”
Catherine races to uncover the identity of the writer, and in so doing is also forced to confront her past before it destroys her relationship with her husband Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen) and their son Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee). The cast also incudes Kevin Kline, and while I could have sworn the woman narrating the first official teaser below was CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, it’s actually Indira Varma.
As if Disclaimer didn’t have enough talent behind it, meanwhile, the score is composed by Grammy Award winner Finneas O’Connell — the brother of Billie Eilish, who, since we’re on the subject, has her own Apple TV+ documentary called The World’s a Little Blurry.
I should add, regarding shows like Disclaimer: Talent and big budgets aren’t automatic guarantees of success. For proof, just like at the film side of Apple TV+, which has replicated Apple TV’s same formula over and over again and still come up short. Fortunately, though, Apple is still taking big swings when it comes to its original dramas like Disclaimer, and here’s hoping it doesn’t slow down anytime soon.
