Critics are usually pretty keen on every new TV show that Apple TV Plus releases, but Sunny has set a new record for the streamer as of its debut on Wednesday, July 10.
Sunny is a sci-fi show about an American woman living in Japan, who's gifted a robotic assistant from her husband's tech company upon his vanishing in a mysterious plane crash. It's billed as a black comedy but it's just as much a sci-fi drama.
At the time of writing, just before its debut, Sunny has a 90% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, with no audience score due to the show being so new. And that sets a glowing new record for Apple TV Plus as one of the best Apple TV Plus shows.
As of Sunny's release, no other new or returning Apple TV Plus show released this year has over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, with only Criminal Record from January matching Sunny at its 90% top spot.
For this ranking I'm excluding kids' and documentary shows as they tend to have far fewer reviews, making a perfect score pretty common for them. I'm just considering fictional drama series.
Some close contenders come from the likes of Land of Women (89%), Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (88%) and Manhunt (88%), and there are countless with scores between 80% and 89%. Only two series come in with a 'rotten' ratings: Palm Royale (57%) and The New Look (58%).
Apple does, of course, have higher-rated shows than Sunny. Bad Sisters, Long Way Up and Drops of God both have perfect scores while Black Bird, Severance, Slow Horses, Pachinko, Mythic Quest and Trying all sit above 95% (for the latter four, that's an average over their seasons; Trying's latest season came out in 2024 but it doesn't have a critics score yet). But so far in 2024, Sunny and Criminal Record sit at the top.
This record might not last the whole year. Silo season 2, Severance season 2 and Pachinko season 3 all bring back beloved series while Disclaimer, Bad Monkey and Time Bandits could also fight for top spot.
Apple TV Plus remains one of the best streaming services for sci-fi stories (a title that's not hard to maintain given rivals' cancellation policies), whether you like "high" sci-fi like Foundation and Silo or more down-to-earth alternatives like Sugar or, now, Sunny.
