Underdog fights back in detective drama

• Published date: 20 August 2024
• Publication title: Signal

MOST Apple TV+ shows are cut from the same plain cloth. They tend to have massive budgets, A-list actors and competent storytelling, but, with a handful of exceptions (Severance, Slow Horses, Sunny, basically all the S’s) they also tend to be relatively forgettable. Fine, entertaining even, but somehow flimsy and fleeting, too. Like the electronic products that made the company’s fortune, it’s all smooth lines and clean corners, which is good for laptops and phones. But when it comes to TV, Apple’s output has often erred on the side of caution

So it is again with Bad Monkey, which stars Vince Vaughn as Andrew Yancy, a disgraced detective unofficially working a case in the Florida Keys. Yancy is off the job after assaulting his lover’s dodgy husband by ramming his golf cart into the water. Even though he has been suspended from the job he clearly loves, bloke’s bloke Yancy is happy at...