Apple TV+ has had a pretty stellar year, between Severance, The Studio, and now Murderbot, with more in the pipeline, and it just unveiled a particularly enticing new show coming soon. Smoke looks like a twisty thriller, and it stars Taron Egerton in what looks like a meaty and complex role.
He plays an arson investigator in the middle of trying to figure out the identities of two serial arsonists plaguing a community. When a new detective (Jurnee Smollett) is assigned to help him out, things start to get more complicated, as his tone shifts and he seems unwilling to accept help.
The trailer embedded above is really quite gripping, and heavily implies that there's more to Egerton's investigator than meets the eye. In fact, it starts to look a little like he might know more about the arson crimes going on than he's admitting – certainly he seems to have an obsession with fire himself.
Smollett's character will obviously have to start digging deeper to figure things out, as she becomes closer to Egerton's in-fiction wife and friends. It's going to be a tangled web, that's for sure, but the show also looks really nice visually, and will clearly have some impressive fire-based set-pieces.
However it unfolds, it looks like an interesting crime show to add to Apple TV+'s repertoire, and rekindles a partnership with Egerton that was started by Black Bird, a 2022 prison drama that was similarly tense and well-acted. He's one of the most capable young actors working today, so I'm all for it.
Smoke will start on 27 June, so you've got almost exactly a month to clear your streaming decks and make way for it each week. It's a great addition from Apple TV+ at a time when its supremacy in sci-fi is basically completely secure – time to come for crime drama, too. I think it's the best streaming service available today, from both a value and quality standpoint, and Smoke looks set to make it all the more attractive if you want some suspense in your evening viewings.
