Observer: "Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed," "The Boroughs," "Spider Noir."
Which one did I loathe? Nope, you're wrong.
The Observer is a spoiler-free curated collection of television series and films.
“Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed.” Apple TV. (2026). 10 episodes.
The initial thought here was pretty simple: It’s Tatiana Maslany. That makes it a must watch.
The premise seemed like it was almost too eager to get messy immediately.
Maslany plays Paula, a recently divorced fact-checker who is overwhelmed by the turns of her life (much of which is withheld from the audience in the first episode), she’s spending money she doesn’t have on a webcam dude named Trevor (Brandon Flynn) and then feeling bad about herself in the morning.
Paula’s ex, Karl (Jake Johnson, who has always been funny and manages here to have his acting co-bill with his comedy chops), is fighting for custody of their daughter, Hazel (Nola Wallace), and seems at first glance as if he might have been drafted into the cult of his new, mostly boring wife, Mallory (Jesse Hodges), who wants to move out of New York.
With Maslany and Johnson sparring, the viewer gets it immediately — this is going to be a tense situation with Maslany, the more sympathetic character, losing a grip on her rights as a mother. That would have been fine because: Maslany.
But whoa, “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” decides to ratchet everything up in the pilot, with Paula witnessing cam boy Trevor getting attacked on camera and him calling out in pain for Paula to call the police. She does, and is immediately told by the wonderfully tart Det. Sofia Gonzalez (Dolly de Leon), that this is a scam and it happens all the time, NBD.
Paula, certain of her sharpness (perfect for a fact checker in journalism), is convinced she can’t be duped. But Det. Gonzalez calls it exactly right — Paula will get a call from Trevor asking for $10-15K to pay his kidnapper/attacker and if that doesn’t work, he’ll blackmail her with all the intimate details she’s given him.
It unfolds exactly like that except, well, there’s a twist (which you’ll appreciate), and that complicates “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” in a lightning fast, decisively smart way that immediately makes you hope that Maslany’s immense talents have finally found a series that, like “Orphan Black,” really highlight her strengths.
And through the first three episodes (the fourth airs Wednesday), it certainly appears that way. Maslany has routinely been better than the fare she’s been in since “Orphan Black” so it’s exciting to think that “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed,” with its quick pacing, well-drawn characters and plot-pushing twists, might be a lot better than expected.
Let’s see what can be sustained here — there’s a bit of a high-wire act driving the drama — but the first three episodes are very encouraging. There have been a number of quality dramas of late, and this looks like another contender.
“The Boroughs.” Netflix. (2026). Eight episodes.
There’s a more thorough “why?” that I’ll get to shortly, but after the first two episodes of “The Boroughs,” my reaction was fairly succinct, with these exact words as that second episode concluded:
“Fuck…all the way…off.”
