3 great Apple TV shows to binge-watch this week (March 9

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3 great Apple TV shows to binge-watch this week (March 9

Even though Apple TV kind of marches to the beat of its own drummer when it comes to how much new content it adds and when (*quickly looks at watch), if you put your mind to it, you can still find some upper-crust TV show titles to watch—or rewatch, as the service does have some of the best shows in the world.

To that end, as March, er, marches on, I’ve got these three primo shows for your watch list: David Attenborough’s smooth, British voice narrating a stunning dinosaur docuseries, a sarcastic and smooth detective story set in Florida, and one of the best series the Cupertino streamer has ever created.

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Prehistoric Planet

I could listen to Sir David Attenborough read the phone book. The world-renowned knight of the realm, broadcaster, biologist, and natural historian, describes this gorgeous Apple TV docuseries best in its opening moments: this is “Planet Earth, 66 million years ago.” Of course, he’s referencing his other critically-acclaimed franchise of nature documentary shows, but in Prehistoric Planet, with the help of the latest in computer-generated animation tech, Attenborough gets to wow us with T-Rexes, Triceratops, enormous sea-dwelling Mosasaurs, and more, as they roamed the planet in the Cretaceous period.

With three seasons to pore over, Prehistoric Planet is a visual feast for the eyes. And just like Planet Earth, Attenborough (and in season three’s Ice Age focus, Tom Hiddleston), guides viewers through habitat-themed episodes, such as Coasts, Deserts, Ice Worlds, Forests, Islands, Swamps, Oceans, and more, treating all the dinosaurs of the time period as he would the animals of today. The series examines how they hunted, migrated, mated, and survived.

Prehistoric Planet also features music from acclaimed composer Hans Zimmer for some extra drama. It’s no surprise that the highly-rated series holds a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes.

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Bad Monkey

Vince Vaughn has been perfecting his cool, suave, sarcastic slacker chops since 1996’s iconic Swingers, and honestly, there’s no one better at it than him. In Bad Monkey, the Hollywood mainstay, for the first time, carries this quirky caper comedy set in Florida, with his signature wisecracking charm.

Based on Carl Hiaasen’s novel of the same name, Vaughn plays Andrew Yancy, a disgraced and benched Key West detective, who’s stuck doing restaurant health inspections. But when a severed arm is pulled from the water, and Andrew is asked to transport it, he can’t help himself and starts investigating. Teaming up with medical examiner Rosa Campesino (Natalie Martinez), they unravel a twisted real-estate grab in the Bahamas involving bad cops, a money-hungry widow (Meredith Hagner) and her sketchy boyfriend (Rob Delaey), a local fisherman, a mystical Obeah “witch lady” called The Dragon Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith), and a whole lot of curses.

Vaughn drives the pace of this hazy, turquoise-rich dark comedy, but I must also mention Michelle Monaghan, who is excellently devilish as Andrew’s ex, the fugitive-on-the-run Bonnie Witt. The critics have been kind to Bad Monkey, with the 10-episode series nailing a 92% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

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Pluribus

Maybe you canceled your Apple TV subscription and are just getting it back. Or maybe you’ve been cryogenically frozen for a century, just thawed out, and are looking to watch the best dagnabbit television program ever created. Whatever your excuse is for not watching this superbly twisted Apple TV sci-fi series from Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan, you need to fit that, and fast.

Pluribus premiered last November and instantly became a hit. It’s already secured several major awards and is a likely frontrunner for this year’s Emmys in September. The premise is beautifully unique and complex at the same time. After humanity intercepts a mysterious DNA recipe from deep space and, against better judgment, recreates it, everyone on Earth is “reprogrammed” into one eerily happy, intelligent, collective hive mind … except Carol Sturka. Incredibly played by Better Call Saul’s Rhea Seehorn, Carol, once a famous romance novelist, is one of only 12 people in the world immune to the “virus,” and makes it her mission to put things back to the way they were.

Darkly funny and full of brilliantly sarcastic, prickly humor from Seehorn, Pluribus is an existential exploration that asks the question, “Would you give up independent thought if all the world’s problems were solved and everyone was happy?”

Three very different lanes to choose from, one easy weeknight plan—let the David Attenborough nature epic take you away, make a detour through sweaty Florida for a murder mystery, and then finish with the best of the best, Pluribus.