Apple TV's Pluribus Succeeded At An Impossible Task

Published Aug 19, 2026, 11:30 AM EDT

Zach Moser has been writing for ScreenRant since 2022, covering movies, classic TV, and streaming TV. His areas of expertise cover a wide range of genres with a particular interest in horror and drama, and the conversations around the TV and film industry. When he's not covering the latest film releases or chronicling the latest season of a new show, he's writing humor pieces for McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Slackjaw, and Points In Case or working on short stories and his second novel. 

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Apple TV has an ongoing sci-fi series with a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes that has succeeded at a nearly impossible task. Apple TV's lineup of original science fiction TV shows has only gotten better and better over the years. Overcoming its slow start, Apple TV has made a name for itself as a great place for original TV shows.

Like HBO before it, Apple TV doesn't seem to care about playing it safe when it comes to its content library. There are all sorts of strange and experimental TV shows on the service, and each is distinct from one another. It suggests the streamer is happy to let the creators have full control of their projects.

While no streamer was going to tell Vince Gilligan "no" after Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, his latest project, Pluribus, feels like it's benefited a lot from being on Apple TV. The series premiered in November 2025, and season 2 was ordered right along with it, though production is still in its early stages.

The nine-episode series stars Rhea Seehorn as Carol Sturka, an author from Albuquerque who watches in horror as the entire world suddenly undergoes some sort of internal transformation at the hands of an alien virus. The virus appears to join everyone on Earth but Carol and a handful of others into a singular hive mind.

The hive mind is bent on two things: doing whatever it can to make Carol happy and fulfilled, and fixing whatever issue she seems to have that's preventing the virus from consuming her. It's one of the best shows of 2025, and it clears a high bar of difficulty considering what show it has to follow up.

Somehow, Pluribus Lived Up To Vince Gilligan & Rhea Seehorn's Most Famous Collaboration

Pluribus is not the first collaboration between Gilligan and Seehorn. That would be Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad prequel series which already succeeded at a nigh-impossible task, meeting the expectations of the original AMC series. Seehorn co-stars as Kim Wexler, a lawyer and romantic partner of Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk).

For her incredible performance, Seehorn earned two Emmy nominations, which doesn't begin to show how great she is in the role. Kim is as compelling and beautifully rendered as anyone in the Breaking Bad universe. Her journey from tight-lipped corporate lawyer to rebellious, charlatan-adjacent accomplice, to regretful, wounded Florida housewife is made so real by Seehorn's startling acting.

It was always going to be a difficult part for Seehorn to follow up and a difficult show for Gilligan to follow up. Expectations were sky-high. Somehow, they've met those expectations. Seehorn has another Emmy nomination; she won a Golden Globe, and Pluribus has a Golden Globe nomination and multiple pending Emmy nominations.

Pluribus Isn't As Removed From Better Call Saul As You Think

Pluribus is a sci-fi series completely separate from the crime drama, neo-Western that is Better Call Saul, but they're not all that far removed from one another in terms of themes, and especially style. You will find the same intriguing Rube Goldberg setups to scenes in Pluribus that are found in all Gilligan's shows.

Both shows frequently subvert the genres they are ostensibly in. Better Call Saul found success digging deeper into legal dramas than any show previously, and Pluribus has a more critical eye on the science fiction tropes of something like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and wonders what would actually happen if the world turned into a hive mind, and wonders whether humanity would even be "smarter" for it?