5 Worst Apple TV Shows, According To Rotten Tomatoes

Apple TV, recently rebranded from Apple TV+, has quietly become a proper streaming service capable of competing with the likes of Hulu and Netflix. While Apple TV doesn't have the depth of content that competitors have, it makes up for that by focusing on quality. The service is home to a plethora of award-winning content across multiple genres, from action movies and feel-good comedies to psychological thrillers. And due to Apple's laser-focus on quality, its programming has garnered an impressive number of awards.

As a quick example, Apple TV was the first streaming service to ever win an Oscar for Best Picture with the film "CODA," in 2022. Meanwhile, shows like "Ted Lasso," "The Studio," and "Severance" have garnered dozens of prestigious award nominations while securing several wins in the process. Both "Ted Lasso" and "The Studio," for example, won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series. All in all, that's not too shabby for a streaming service that launched in 2019.

At the same time, not every new show or movie from Apple is a home run, and sometimes they simply fail to resonate with viewers. So while I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of shows on the service are well done and worth watching, a few duds have managed to sneak in as well. In light of that, we recently took a look at critic rankings on Rotten Tomatoes to help identify the five worst shows on Apple TV. So if you're looking for a new TV binge, here are the five titles you should definitely avoid.

The fifth lowest-rated Apple TV show on Rotten Tomatoes is "City on Fire." Released in 2023, the show didn't exactly strike a chord with critics and currently has a 42% score on the Tomatometer. However, its 72% rating on the Popcornmeter is proof that regular viewers enjoyed it quite a bit more than critics.

"City on Fire" is a mystery-drama series set in the aftermath of 9/11. It's about a missing college student who gets shot and injured on July 4, 2003, in the middle of Central Park in New York City. As the investigation into the shooting progresses, layers of conspiracy, NYC subcultures, and ultra-wealthy characters begin to enter the picture. Ultimately, the multiple storylines converge, but it takes too much time to get there, which is why many viewers found the show to be a bit slow-moving. "City on Fire" only lasted eight episodes before being canceled.

Up next, we have "Liaison," a spy thriller starring Vincent Cassel and Eva Green as intelligence operatives. They're also former lovers who are forced to reconnect and work together following a wave of sophisticated cyberattacks targeting the United Kingdom. As you might expect, their romantic past affects their collaboration and complicates their efforts to stay focused on the mission.

While "Liaison," on the surface, has all the trappings of a classic spy series, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. It currently has a 42% score on the Tomatometer and an equally disappointing 55% on the Popcornmeter. Ultimately, the show falls into a familiar trap insofar as it tries to straddle two genres and ends up falling short in both. "Liaison" aspires to be a spy thriller wrapped in a love story, but viewers are left with lesser versions of each.

All in all, it's surprising that "Liaison" was such a flop, as Apple has a rather impressive track record when it comes to spy thrillers. The Emmy Award-winning "Slow Horses," for example, has a 97% rating on the Tomatometer. "Tehran" is another example: It's a captivating spy thriller about Israel and Iran and has an equally impressive 92% rating on the Tomatometer. Incidentally, "Tehran" manages to fuse a spy thriller with romantic elements masterfully. Specifically, the romantic subplot in "Tehran" doesn't take away from the action, but actually serves to heighten the tension and propel the story forward. I highly recommend it if you're looking for a top-notch spy series.

The third lowest-rated series on Apple TV is, technically, the sports documentary "Messi Meets America," but we'll skip it to talk about scripted fiction only. That leaves this spot free for "Amazing Stories," which is disappointing because it arrived with a lot of hype and nostalgic-fueled excitement. Ultimately, though, it simply failed to live up to expectations, currently holding rating of 41% on the Tomatometer.

When Apple started getting serious about original TV content in 2017, it signed a deal with Steven Spielberg to be an executive producer of the series, which is a reboot of the 1980s sci-fi series of the same name. Given that the original show was nominated for multiple Emmys, and coupled with Spielberg's involvement, expectations were understandably high. In fact, many people at the time the deal was announced believed the "Amazing Stories" had the potential to become a flagship Apple TV series.

But in an era where writers are constantly thinking outside the box to come up with engaging sci-fi adventures, the "Amazing Stories" revamp was simply bland. Many people, including myself, went in expecting something as fresh and original as "Black Mirror," but the show simply isn't that. Overall, Spielberg's production focuses more on delivering heartwarming stories than cutting and bold sci-fi plot lines. Was I disappointed because I had nostalgia for the original series? Perhaps. But most reviews seem to agree that the reboot simply failed to deliver.

We're getting down to the bottom of the barrel now. The Apple TV series with the second-lowest rating on Rotten Tomatoes is "The Crowded Room," starring Tom Holland and Amanda Seyfried. I actually happened to enjoy this series, but it was nothing short of a critical bomb given its 33% rating on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer.

The series is a psychological thriller that focuses on Danny (Holland), who was involved in a shooting in 1979. After the event, Danny sits down for an interview with a psychologist, and flashbacks of his life start to pop up. As the story unfolds, viewers start to piece together big moments in the lead character's life that led up to the shooting. I won't spoil anything, but there's a big twist that I found engaging, but some critics think is a bit too predictable. Overall, I enjoyed "The Crowded Room," but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to others. The acting is top-notch, but many reviews on Rotten Tomatoes said it was too much of a slow burn.

The show, it's worth noting, wasn't canceled. Rather, it was designed from the start as a limited series.

And now, for what may be the worst Apple TV show ever released, we have "Before." Like many other series on this list, "Before" boasts an all-star cast with Billy Crystal and Judith Light. But that acting power couldn't do much to save the series from widely negative reviews. In fact, it's fair to say that almost no one was a fan of the show, as it has a 30% rating from critics and a paltry 53% rating from regular viewers.

"Before" is a mystery thriller. And if you're noticing a pattern, it seems that the majority of Apple's least-liked productions tend to fall in the mystery, thriller, or suspense categories. Perhaps whoever is green-lighting them at Apple has a poor gauge for what will resonate with viewers.

That aside, "Before" has Crystal as child psychiatrist Eli grieving his wife's recent death. Amidst all the turmoil Eli is going through, he comes into contact with a young boy suffering from his own psychological issues. The twist is that the boy seems to know some interesting aspects of Eli's life that he should definitely have no way of knowing. As the show attempts to bridge the connection between these two worlds, it introduces some supernatural elements as well. But as intriguing as the premise sounds, the show simply fails to deliver.