After the new awards success, Apple TV needs to revive the fantasy series it canceled after two seasons. According to a 2023 report from Luminate, Apple TV had the lowest cancellation rate of any streamer, at just 4.9%. Since then, several of its major series have gone on to be renewed, including Slow Horses through season 7, For All Mankind for season 5 and a sixth and final season, and Silo for seasons 2, 3, and 4, the last of which will conclude the science-fiction adaptation.
In addition to renewing multiple seasons of various shows, Apple TV has revived some that were seemingly finished. A prominent example of this is Ted Lasso, which concluded its three-season story in 2023. However, it was later revived for a fourth season that will premiere on the streaming platform on August 5.
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🍪Ted LassoBiscuits with the boss
🧠SeverancePraise Kier
🐎Slow HorsesSlough House
☕Morning ShowLive from NYC
🚀For All MankindWhat if…?
01
Apple TV+’s breakout comedy about a relentlessly optimistic American football coach hired to manage an English Premier League team won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series back-to-back in 2021 and 2022. Who plays Ted?
✓ Correct! Jason Sudeikis — the former SNL cast member who originally played Ted in 2013 NBC Sports Premier League promos. He co-created the series with Brendan Hunt (who plays Coach Beard), Bill Lawrence, and Joe Kelly. Sudeikis won back-to-back Emmys for Best Actor in a Comedy. A Season 4 is officially in production for 2026.
✗ Cut it off! The answer is Jason Sudeikis. Jon Hamm is Mad Men (and later showed up as himself in Ted Lasso Season 2). Will Ferrell hasn’t done an Apple TV+ show. Brendan Hunt plays Coach Beard — Ted’s silent assistant — and was a co-creator, but Sudeikis is the title character and won two Best Actor Emmys for the role.
02
Ben Stiller-directed sci-fi thriller Severance became a cultural phenomenon with its eerie Macrodata Refinement floors and “praise Kier” cultishness. What is the name of the sinister biotech corporation at its centre?
✓ Correct! Lumon Industries — the unsettling corporation founded by the cult-like Eagan family, whose “severance procedure” surgically splits an employee’s work memories from their outside life. Weyland-Yutani is from Alien; Umbrella Corp is Resident Evil; Apex is fictional but not this show. Lumon’s retro-futuristic aesthetic (beige Macbook-era CRTs and long hallways) has become instantly iconic.
✗ Cut it off! The answer is Lumon Industries. Weyland-Yutani is the Alien franchise’s evil megacorp. Umbrella Corp runs Resident Evil. Apex isn’t a recognisable fictional company. Lumon is the creepy biotech behind Severance — with its Kier Eagan cult of personality, waffle parties, and surgically separated “innies” and “outies.”
03
In March 2022, Apple TV+ made streaming history when one of its films became the first from any streaming service to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Which film was it?
✓ Correct! CODA (Children of Deaf Adults) — Sian Heder’s drama about a hearing daughter of a deaf family in Massachusetts — won Best Picture at the 94th Academy Awards, beating The Power of the Dog (the heavy favourite). Troy Kotsur’s supporting-actor win was the first for a deaf male actor. The Morning Show is a TV series, Greyhound is Apple’s Tom Hanks WWII film, Killers is an Apple film but was released later.
✗ Cut it off! The answer is CODA. The Morning Show is a series. Greyhound is Apple’s 2020 Tom Hanks WWII film (a solid hit but not an Oscar winner). Killers of the Flower Moon — Scorsese’s 2023 Apple release — was nominated for 10 Oscars but won none. CODA’s 2022 Best Picture win made Apple the first streamer to break through in the category.
04
The scruffy, flatulent, ruthlessly cynical MI5 exile Jackson Lamb — running the Slough House dumping ground for disgraced spies — is one of modern TV’s most acclaimed performances. Which veteran actor plays him?
✓ Correct! Gary Oldman — Oscar winner for Darkest Hour — plays Jackson Lamb opposite Kristin Scott Thomas’ glacial Diana Taverner. The series adapts Mick Herron’s Slough House novels and has become Apple’s most quietly successful long-running drama, renewed through at least Season 6. Oldman has repeatedly called Lamb his favourite role of his career.
✗ Cut it off! The answer is Gary Oldman. Anthony Hopkins hasn’t done an Apple TV+ series of this prominence. Colin Firth was reportedly in contention for different spy roles (including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s George Smiley, which Oldman also played). Jim Broadbent appears elsewhere. Oldman’s Lamb is one of TV’s most delightfully unpleasant protagonists.
05
Apple TV+’s flagship prestige drama on launch day — a #MeToo-era newsroom saga about the on-air partners of a fictional morning TV show — was anchored by two huge Hollywood names as its co-leads and producers. Who are they?
✓ Correct! Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon — both also executive producers — anchor the show as Alex Levy and Bradley Jackson. Reportedly each earned a then-record $1.1 million per episode. Steve Carell co-stars as the disgraced anchor whose firing kicks off the entire series. Aniston earned her first Emmy nomination for dramatic work for the role in 2020.
✗ Cut it off! The answer is Jennifer Aniston & Reese Witherspoon. Witherspoon & Dern did Big Little Lies (on HBO). Kidman was also in Big Little Lies. Meryl Streep joined The Morning Show in later seasons (a supporting role). Aniston and Witherspoon lead and produce — both reportedly making $1.1M per episode in one of streaming’s richest-ever deals.
06
Ronald D. Moore’s alt-history space epic For All Mankind — one of Apple TV+’s original launch titles — jumps forward in time each season. What is the show’s central point of divergence from real history?
✓ Correct! The Soviets beat Apollo 11 to the Moon in June 1969 — keeping the Space Race alive and turning NASA into a permanently ascendant institution. That single change cascades across decades: women astronauts are pushed early, lunar bases are built in the 1970s, Mars is reached in the 1990s, and so on. Each season time-jumps ahead a decade, showing how this different history snowballs.
✗ Cut it off! The answer is the Soviets landing on the Moon first — June 1969, beating Apollo 11. That single change drives everything: continued funding, expanded NASA, women astronauts, a permanent lunar base by the 1980s, Mars missions in the 1990s. Aliens aren’t in the show. Mars gets colonised, but much later. NASA remains public throughout the series.
07
Apple TV+ launched with a small lineup of nine originals — including The Morning Show, See, Dickinson, and For All Mankind — at the aggressively low price of $4.99 a month. When did the service officially go live?
✓ Correct! Apple TV+ launched on November 1, 2019 — just before Disney+ beat it to market by 11 days. Apple went in with a tiny roster of about nine originals (versus Disney+’s massive back catalogue) but compensated with $1 billion in original content spend and a one-year free trial for Apple hardware buyers. Its quality-over-quantity bet has since paid off in awards and prestige.
✗ Cut it off! The answer is November 2019 — specifically November 1st, just 11 days before Disney+ launched (a deliberate piece of scheduling brinkmanship). Apple launched with only nine originals and priced at $4.99/month to try to get ahead of Netflix and Disney. The service went live just before the pandemic turbocharged streaming growth everywhere.
08
Apple TV+’s post-apocalyptic thriller Silo — starring Rebecca Ferguson in a 10,000-person underground society — adapts a bestselling series of novels originally self-published as a 2011 short story. Who wrote them?
✓ Correct! Hugh Howey self-published Wool as a short story on Amazon in 2011; word-of-mouth turned it into a trilogy (Wool, Shift, Dust) and eventually a publishing phenomenon. Apple’s adaptation, retitled Silo, premiered in 2023. Andy Weir wrote The Martian and Project Hail Mary. Blake Crouch wrote Dark Matter and Recursion. Ted Chiang wrote the novella that became Arrival.
✗ Cut it off! The answer is Hugh Howey. Andy Weir is The Martian/Project Hail Mary. Blake Crouch is Dark Matter/Recursion (also recently adapted to Apple TV+, hence the mix-up). Ted Chiang is Arrival’s source. Howey’s Wool trilogy — Silo’s source — started as a self-published Amazon short story in 2011 before exploding into a bestseller.
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Cupertino completionist — or still on the free trial?
An exception to Apple TV’s renewals and revivals is Schmigadoon!, which it canceled after two seasons in 2023. The fantasy series sees married couple Melissa Gimble (Cecily Strong) and Josh Skinner (Keegan-Michael Key) stumbling into a magical town that is a 24/7 musical. They are unable to escape unless they repair their relationship, which was already struggling before their arrival.
Season 1 is a parody of Brigadoon, The Music Man, and other Golden Age musicals. Season 2’s setting is the city of Schmicago, which parodies the musicals of the 1960s and 1970s, including Chicago, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Annie, Hair, and Jesus Christ Superstar.
Despite having the potential for season 3 to parody the next era of musicals, the show was canceled by Apple TV. However, Schmigadoon! later became a Broadway musical that adapted season 1, and it received 12 Tony Award nominations, and won in four categories.
Apple TV Needs To Revive Schmigadoon! After The Tony Award Wins
Schmigadoon! is now the winner of the Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics), and Best Orchestrations. This is an impressive feat, and it is even being recognized by Apple TV, who posted on their official social media accounts “Officially a Tony-winning schmusical. Congratulations to the entire cast and crew of Schmigadoon! on their 4 Tony Award wins, including Best Musical.”
Between this prestigious new success, awareness of the musical being higher than ever, and even Apple TV celebrating the show they canceled, it is the perfect time to revive it. Many television shows get canceled too soon, but one of them going on to become a Tony Award-winning musical is something else entirely, and it should be capitalized on, especially with the momentum being as strong as it is right now. Many of the comments on Apple TV’s recent social media posts are even asking for a revival.
During the acceptance of the Tony Award for Best Musical, producer Christine Schwarzman thanked Apple TV for canceling the show because without this, it would not have been possible to make the Broadway musical become a reality. Now, the best way to make the situation come full-circle would be for Apple TV to find a way to revive the series for season 3.
Schmigadoon! Season 3’s Story Has Already Been Revealed
Photo: Apple TV via MovieStillsDB.
Compared to many other television revivals, making it happen for Schmigadoon! season 3 is far more feasible. Series co-creator Cinco Paul, who won the Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics), previously confirmed that season 3 has already been written and features 25 new songs.
As for what the story would entail, he told Entertainment Weekly after the season 2 finale and prior to the series cancellation that since Melissa is pregnant, “I think they’ll have a child and they will love it and it’ll become a huge part of their lives.” He also shared how the “Happy Beginning” song hinted at what was to come in season 3.
The inspiration behind “Happy Beginning” was really “Rainbow Connection” [from The Muppet Movie]. It’s meant to be a little hint about how things could move forward. The feeling of that is so optimistic and hopeful in that song, although there’s a little melancholy tied in always with Kermit. That’s the genius of the Muppets and of Paul Williams, who wrote “The Rainbow Connection.”
Based on these remarks and the show’s overall premise, Schmigadoon! season 3 would follow Melissa and Josh as parents and move into parodying the musicals of the 1980s and 1990s. Along with Strong and Key reprising their roles, other actors from the previous seasons could return, including Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Cumming, Aaron Tveit, Ariana DeBose, Jane Krakowski, Dove Cameron, Fred Armisen, Jaime Camil, Martin Short, Patrick Page, and Titus Burgess. Ann Harada should also be in it, as she is the only actor to be in both the Apple TV show and the Broadway musical.
