Best Apple TV TV Shows for writing quality

writing quality Decision Dashboard

Best for writing quality

Slow Horses, Season 6

5.0 attribute score

Highest scored product for this attribute based on supporting review evidence.

Safest pick

Margo's Got Money Troubles

5.0 attribute score

Balances the attribute score, supporting reviews, and overall product strength.

Most evidence

Pluribus, Season 1

25 supporting reviews

Has the broadest review evidence for this attribute.

Best overall product

Small Prophets

4.5 overall score

Strongest overall product among items with scored evidence for this attribute.

#1 Slow Horses, Season 6
5.0

The scripts retain the series’ signature sarcasm, wit, and efficient plotting even after the lead-writer change. Reviewers who focused on the writing found the handover impressively smooth.

Pros: main cast performance, humor

Cons: plot originality

#2 Margo’s Got Money Troubles
5.0

The scripts are praised for sharp humor, emotional clarity, and thematic ambition, but criticized when court drama, tonal shifts, or convenient resolutions become too visible.

Pros: audience appeal, character development

Cons: season pacing, season length

#3 Widow's Bay
4.7

The writing is praised for sharpness and for holding together scares, jokes, mystery, and character work.

Pros: genre satisfaction, suspense

#4 Small Prophets
4.6

The video assessment strongly praises the script for making the cast convincing and leaving an appetite for more.

Pros: entertainment value, story quality

#5 Star City, Season 1
4.5

The screenplay gets credit for making familiar franchise characters feel newly compelling in their younger years. When the script focuses on pivotal early moments, it gives the prequel material real...

Pros: character development, spin-off quality

Cons: accent authenticity, plot clarity

#6 Last Seen
4.4

The scripted drama is praised as top-notch in the strongest review, particularly for giving twists emotional meaning instead of treating them as isolated shocks.

Pros: story quality, genre satisfaction

Cons: realism, season pacing

#7 Pluribus, Season 1
4.3

Writing is widely praised for trusting the audience, subverting familiar science-fiction tropes, and building character and ideas patiently, even when the pacing becomes divisive.

Pros: acting quality, story quality

Cons: season pacing, character likability

#8 Dark Matter, Season 2
4.1

Individual storylines can be sharply written, with Amanda and Ryan’s material specifically praised as excellent.

Pros: story quality, theme depth

Cons: plot clarity, season pacing

#9 Silo, Season 3
3.7

Writing reactions are mostly strong, especially around audience trust, sharper themes, and carefully planted answers. The main criticisms involve contrivances, urgency dips, and occasional table-setting.

Pros: main cast performance, episode structure

Cons: season pacing, character development

#10 Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, Season 1
3.5

The screenplay can feel trapped by genre mechanics when the mystery widens. Slant and Radio Times offer the clearest low notes, calling out conventions and an unclear purpose that blunt...

Pros: main cast performance, supporting cast performance

Cons: plot clarity, season pacing

#11 Cape Fear, Season 1
3.3

The screenplay is credited with giving the lawyers a morally slippery setup and mining their compromises, though that same excess can tip toward melodrama.

Pros: acting quality, visual style

Cons: story quality, season length

#12 Ted Lasso, Season 4
3.1

The writing is highly uneven: strong episodes evolve the show’s central ideas and character dynamics, while weaker ones rely on contrivance, clutter, or familiar beats.

Pros: humor, sports storyline quality

Cons: story quality, character development

#13 Brothers (2026)
2.3

The scripts are frequently criticized as routine and stock, with familiar sitcom mechanics doing too much of the work.

Pros: cast chemistry, supporting cast performance

Cons: humor, story quality