Dishing up yet another prestige drama with a star-stacked cast, Apple TV Plus is pulling no punches and sparing no budget in its pursuit to become a big streaming player, writes streaming columnist NICK OVERALL.

Apple Plus’ newest drama series is called Disclaimer and it stars our own Cate Blanchett in the lead role as an award-winning journalist Catherine Ravenscroft, a hard-nosed investigative documentary maker who has built her career on uncovering the dirty deeds of others in positions of power.

But her world gets turned upside down when she finds a mysterious novel on her bedside table, one where she is the main character and which contains her own deepest and darkest secrets. Now she’s forced to find the answer to a disturbing question: who is the author?

The unravelling of these secrets threatens both her relationship with her son Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and her marriage to Robert, played by Sacha Baron Cohen in a performance that’s a far cry from the antics of Borat.

Further to the big cast is the directing talent.

Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron is behind this one and those who don’t know his name will almost certainly know his work. Roma, Gravity, Children of Men and Harry Potter to name just a few.

This eight-episode affair is everything a drama limited series should be, intriguing, unsettling and packed with pithy twists that don’t get unnecessarily dragged out, making for a puzzle that many will enjoy piecing together. 

The comparatively smaller viewership of Apple TV Plus means it’s front and centre for the “underrated” tag that gets thrown around, but if Apple can continue to keep up this kind of quality then it may just be able to get Netflix in its sights yet.

ANY show or film with the name “Stephen King” written somewhere on it is bound to attract plenty of eyeballs.

A few hit adaptations of the famous horror writer’s novels have brought whole new popularity to his creepy and strange oeuvre.

That’s particularly thanks to IT, a blockbuster two-film adaptation based on King’s best-seller about the clown who terrorises the children of small-town America (currently streamable on Netflix).

Now Binge is trying to cash in on King’s brand, with a new adaptation of Salem’s Lot that’s just hit screens.

This story about a novelist who returns to his hometown only to find it inhabited by vampires is widely considered one of the author’s scariest inventions.

King himself previously referred to the book as his favourite, a big call for someone who has written more than 60 of them.

There’s been a string of attempts to port the novel to the screen, including a two-part mini-series in 1979 with James Mason, which was met with middling reviews.

In 2004 another mini-series had a crack at it, starring Rob Lowe and Donald Sutherland. The strong cast still wasn’t quite enough for the production to be considered top-shelf material though.

Is the third time the charm?

Sadly, 2024’s attempt is the worst yet.

The film feels rushed, low budget and without much passion for the original story. Not even Stephen King diehards are likely to find much substance here.

It seems this is yet another case of trying to lazily pump out something with prior recognition to cash in.

In the last decade, there have been flop adaptations of Pet Sematary, The Dark Tower, Firestarter and The Stand, all of which were just too eager to hop on the Stephen King hype train a little too quickly.

For every good King adaptation audiences get, it seems three more dumpster fires follow in its place in an attempt to catch the excitement while it’s hot.

It’s a shame because the source material on offer here from the master of horror himself has so much potential for great television. Churn out too many misses and the only thing people will be frightened by is the terrible review scores.