Sunny

Streaming on: Apple TV+

Episodes viewed: 10 of 10

There's nothing more human than grief, that searing loss which carves out your insides until there's nothing left but a void where your heart used to be. Yet there's something quite robotic about the numbness that hits first, and it's between these two extremes where a new Apple TV+ show explores what it actually means to be human.

This is a show that wants to be a lot of things all at once, multitasking like the robot that lends the series its name, and for the most part, it works very well. Across ten 30-minute episodes, creator Katie Robbins (The Affair) navigates big reveals, pithy put-downs, intriguing cold opens and yakuza antics with humour and pathos, all set in a semi-futuristic yet still recognisable Japan. It's a lot, granted, but a game cast ground this robot-filled world with much humanity, including Sunny herself (Joanna Sotomura).

Gripping flashbacks weave in dialogue from the past and present to keep the puzzle-box mystery moving.

Visually, Sunny's every expression and movement feel fully realised, like WALL-E or Baymax, but in a living, breathing, live-action world. Said world is stunning too, with the kind of expensive production values and lofty world-building that Apple has become known for (see also: Severance, Hello Tomorrow!).

The key, though, is Sotomura, who brings uncharacteristic warmth and exuberance to Sunny. It's a stark counterpoint to Suzie (Rashida Jones), whose loneliness and quiet rage threaten to consume everything around her. Yet there's much more to this pair than just an oddball double act. Drive My Car's Hidetoshi Nishijima, understandably absent for much of Sunny as Suzie’s husband, is just as strong in a format-breaking standalone episode, while Judy Ongg steals every scene as his overbearing mother.

If only the show had as much to say about AI as Noriko does about Suzie's flaws. The middle third struggles a bit pace-wise, too, although gripping flashbacks weave in dialogue from the past and present to keep the puzzle-box mystery moving. Still, there's much to recommend here in yet another bilingual (sure-to-be) hit from Apple, one that we'd mourn the end of if cancelled after just one season.