Apple TV's Hit 40-Episode Comedy Fully Deserves Its 97% Score On Rotten Tomatoes
El is a Junior TV Features Editor for ScreenRant, with previous experience as The Mary Sue's UK and Weekend Editor. She holds a Bachelor's in International Media and Entertainment Management, as well as an MA and Ph.D. in Creative Writing. There is little she loves more than discussing her favorite TV shows with fellow fans. One day, she hopes to publish an original fantasy novel.
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Apple TV's incredible five-season, 40-episode comedy series fully deserves its critical acclaim and high Rotten Tomatoes score. Though Apple TV is primarily known for its big-budget, high-end science fiction series, a few great comedies have found a global audience on the platform, too. Ted Lasso, which returned for its surprise fourth season earlier this month, and the Emmy-winning Shrinking, which stars Harrison Ford and Jason Segel, have earned a well-deserved reputation for producing realistic stories and balancing heartfelt, sometimes even heartbreaking moments with genuine, laugh-out-loud comedy.
Another Apple TV original comedy series deserves just as much recognition, if not more. Andy Wolton's Trying is one of the funniest and most comforting shows on streaming today. Starring Rafe Spall and Esther Smith as a 30-something London couple, Jason and Nikki, the series chronicles their roundabout journey to parenthood as they decide to foster, then officially adopt, a young brother-sister duo.
Naturally, it isn't an easy transition for any of them, especially after the show's game-changing six-year time jump between seasons 3 and 4. In the latest fifth season, which just aired its finale earlier this week, both the kids — now teens — are trying to figure out who they are and where they come from. Trying is, at its core, the ultimate found family show, one that reinvents itself with each new parenting challenge. Most importantly, it manages to stay consistently funny throughout without ever being dragged down by its heavier yet necessary emotional moments.
Trying Is Quietly One Of Apple TV's Highest-Rated Shows On Rotten Tomatoes
Trying is, unsurprisingly, one of the highest-rated Apple TV shows on Rotten Tomatoes, with both its critics' Tomatometer score and the audiences' Popcornmeter score. Currently, after five seasons, Trying boasts an exceedingly high 97% approval rating from critics and a genuinely impressive 89% audience rating. Apple TV's spy drama Slow Horses, for instance, shares Trying's 97% Tomatometer rating but has a slightly lower 88% Popcornmeter score. Vince Gilligan's Pluribus has a near-perfect 99% Tomatometer score but a much lower 68% audience score. Severance has a 95% Tomatometer score and an 80% audience score.
|
RT Critics' Score |
RT Audience Score |
|
|
Trying Season 1 |
88% |
93% |
|
Trying Season 2 |
100% |
96% |
|
Trying Season 3 |
N/A |
88% |
|
Trying Season 4 |
100% |
82% |
|
Trying Season 5 |
100% |
N/A |
|
Average |
97% |
89% |
Trying has even bested its most obvious competitors, Ted Lasso and Shrinking. Shrinking holds a 93% Rotten Tomatoes critics' score and an 87% audience score, while Ted Lasso holds a recently lowered 89% Tomatometer score and an 83% audience score. Trying is also one of Apple TV's most consistently high performers. Of five seasons, three hold a 100% Tomatometer score, proving that every season has something genuinely engaging to offer without ever letting the show feel like it's run its course. If any show deserves to be renewed for a sixth outing, it's Trying.
Trying Is A Rare Comedy Series With No Weak Season
Trying is one of the few comedy shows in the streaming era without a weak season. Of course, given the subject matter, some seasons might hit viewers harder than others. Perhaps some people prefer the kids' storylines when they're older, as it gives their character development a chance to feel more dramatic and weighted. Maybe someone else prefers the episodes that focus on Jason and Nikki's relationship beyond their responsibilities with the kids. Some might even enjoy the show for their extended family's zany antics, like Scott's (Darren Boyd) hundreds of unfinished projects and his trek across the Atlantic Ocean.
Now Playing · Sound On How Well Do You Know Apple TV+? “Believe.”
🍪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.
End Credits · Autoplay Paused Your Apple TV+ Rank
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Cupertino completionist — or still on the free trial?
Whatever drew people to the show in the first place, what Trying does beautifully is balance Jason, Nikki, Princess, and Tyler's story as a family unit with their individual arcs and their relationships with those closest to them. Everything feels so natural, and while the show is overwhelmingly wholesome, it never feels preachy or overly sanitized. These characters are allowed to make mistakes; they're allowed to be angry and frustrated and feel defeated, but they get through it with the help of those around them. Trying never feels like it's trying too hard to be something it's not.
This might be because creator and writer Wolton based the show on his own experiences of being adopted (via My Entertainment World), so there's always an element of truth and honesty that allows it to feel more relatable than other similarly wholesome, dramatic comedy shows. Wolton's scripts are also genuinely funny and haven't lost their edge throughout the show's five-season run; the episode in which Jason and Nikki go on a weekend trip to Tuscany in season 5 is such a hilariously unexpected delight. Trying may not be as loud as some of Apple TV's other shows, but it certainly holds its own.
All episodes of Trying are streaming now on Apple TV.
- Release Date
- 2020 - 2023
- Network
- Apple TV
- Directors
- Ollie Parsons, Ellie Heydon, Elliot Hegarty, Jim O'Hanlon
- Writers
- Andy Wolton, Oriane Messina, James Wood, Fay Rusling
- Cast
- Rafe Spall, Esther Smith, Phil Davis, Ophelia Lovibond, Oliver Chris, Yasmine Holness-Dove, Scarlett Rayner, Cooper Turner, Tarik Mesfun, Sophie Fletcher, Elodie Blomfield, Paula Wilcox, Sian Brooke, Darren Boyd, Diana Pozharskaya, Cush Jumbo, Robyn Cara, Imelda Staunton, Billie Gadsdon, Phoenix Laroche, Simon Bubb, James Doherty, Marian McLoughlin, Kenneth Cranham, Clare Higgins
- Creator(s)
- Andy Wolton
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.