“Amazing Stories” wants to be a place where ordinary people get pulled into strange adventures. It is a short-lived anthology series, one season of five episodes, produced for Apple TV+. Steven Spielberg created it, along with Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, who built their career on fantasy and adventure. The show draws its name from the first science fiction magazine, which launched in 1926 and has kept appearing in new forms for decades. That history is the show’s whole argument: stories about wonder are worth telling again.
Trailer, via Apple TV.
The Format
Each episode stands alone, with a different cast and a different world. The show leans on guest stars to sell its premise, and the announcements for those guests came fast. Edward Burns, Austin Stowell, and Kerry Bishé were named together on December 4, 2018. Robert Forster followed on October 11, 2019, with the note that it would be his final role after his death in the episode “Dynaman and the Volt.” Dylan O’Brien, Victoria Pedretti, Josh Holloway, and Sasha Alexander were added on January 19, 2020.
That is a lot of names for a show with only five episodes. The pattern holds across the series: famous actors, small parts, quick exits. The anthology format asks viewers to treat each story as a one-off, and the casting announcements made that promise feel real. The show knows its own limits.
What Holds Together
The show’s stated purpose is transporting everyday characters into worlds of wonder, possibility, and imagination. That is a thin frame, and the series does not always fill it well. Some episodes lean on spectacle; others lean on mood. Few lean on character development, since nobody stays around long enough to earn one.
The best episodes find a single idea and let it play out. The weaker ones spend too much time explaining why the world works the way it does. The series is at its best when it trusts the audience to sit with a mystery rather than spelling it out.
The Guest List
The show’s guest stars are its clearest selling point. Robert Forster’s appearance, announced as his final role, gave the series a weight that few anthology shows can manage. His death in the episode “Dynaman and the Volt” turned that announcement into a fact rather than a promise. The other guest stars bring energy to their brief turns, even when the scripts around them do not hold up.
The guest announcements were spaced out over nearly two years, which suggests the show was building its cast before it had finished writing its stories. That kind of scheduling is common in television, but it can leave a show feeling assembled rather than designed. The result is a series where the names on the poster are more memorable than the stories they tell.
How It Plays Out
The show premiered on March 6, 2020, and ran through April 3, 2020. That is a short window for a show with this ambition. Five episodes is barely enough time to establish a tone, let alone build a mythology. The series feels like a pilot for a show that never got a second season, which is a fair reading of what it delivers.
The show’s creators have a long history with fantasy and adventure, but “Amazing Stories” does not fully live up to that pedigree. The anthology format asks for precision, and this series often settles for mood. The difference matters when the show is judged against its own goals.
What Works
- Robert Forster’s final role carries genuine weight, especially after his death in the episode “Dynaman and the Volt.”
- The guest star announcements create anticipation that the show mostly honors.
- The show’s premise is simple and easy to understand.
What Does Not Work
- The anthology format means character development gets shortchanged in favor of spectacle.
- Some episodes explain their worlds instead of letting them breathe.
- The show’s ambitions exceed its runtime, leaving some ideas unfinished.
The Running Order
| Episode | Date |
|---|---|
| Premiere | March 6, 2020 |
| Final episode | April 3, 2020 |
That is the full run of the series. Five episodes, six weeks, gone.
Our View
“Amazing Stories” is a show that knows its own tricks better than its own heart. It understands the power of a guest star and the pull of a strange world, but it does not always know what to do with either once the episode starts moving. The series is pleasant to watch and forgettable to remember. It is the kind of show that fills a slot without demanding much attention beyond it.
The show’s creators have made bigger, more ambitious projects before. This one plays safe, and safety is not the same as success. The anthology format demands discipline, and “Amazing Stories” does not always meet it.
The show earns a score of 5.1 out of 10. That is a fair middle ground: not a failure, not a triumph, just a show that does what it promises without doing much more.
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