Apple TV Plus is free this weekend. Here are the best shows to watch

Apple TV is hoping to entice subscribers in 2025 by making the streaming service free for all viewers on January 4th and 5th. In case you’ve lost track of the calendar in the strange days of the final week of December, let’s clarify: That’s this Saturday and Sunday. Apple revealed the free weekend on X, posting “This weekend, see for yourself. Stream for free Jan 4-5.” [Media: https://twitter.com/AppleTV/status/1873730763356795379] Though far from a streaming heavyweight like Netflix, Hulu, or Disney Plus, Apple TV Plus has still consistently produced some of Polygon’s favorite television of the last couple years. Two days isn’t a huge amount of time to power through a multi-season television show, but if you’re looking to stay in and get cozy (it’s the first weekend of January, no one would blame you) here are our expert recommendations: * Prehistoric Planet — This David Attenborough documentary presents the life of dinosaurs as living, breathing, mating-dance doing animals, using cutting edge CGI and paleontological findings. * Foundation — Maybe the best non-franchise space opera on TV right now. Season 1’s clunkiness is fully rescued by season 2’s grandeur, and if you’re really strapped for time, the first episode of season 1 is also a dazzling and contained little sci-fi movie all on its own. * Monarch: Legacy of Monsters — Just want something big, stupid, and very fun? Take a gander at this generational time-line jumping Monsterverse spinoff. * Hijack — Or spend the weekend gasping at the twists of this Idris Elba-starring thriller series. * Silo — This post-apocalyptic scifi mystery, based on the novels and short stories of Hugh Howey, was one of our best TV shows of 2023. * Severance — Severance, in which employees voluntarily bisect their consciousnesses in to “work” and “life” versions with no memories of the others’ experiences, was one of our favorites of 2022. The long-awaited second season will premiere January 17. * Slow Horses — And the spy drama of Slow Horses has stuck around in our esteem in all of its four seasons.