Rashida Jones to star in dark Apple TV Plus comedy about a grief robot
The show is based on Colin O'Sullivan's novel The Dark Manual
Hot on the heels of Severance, Apple TV+ and A24 have lined up another grim-sounding series starring an alum from Parks And Recreation. This new one is Sunny, a series adaptation of Colin O’Sullivan’s novel The Dark Manual, which has lined up Rashida Jones to star.
The series will star Jones as Suzie, an American woman living in Japan who husband and son are killed in a “mysterious plane crash.” To help with her grief, her late husband’s electronics company gives her “one of a new class of domestic robots,” and while she resents the robot—Sunny—at first, they eventually become friends and try to “uncover the dark truth of what really happened to Suzie’s family, becoming dangerously enmeshed in a world Suzie never knew existed.”
That comes from Deadline, which says this is a “darkly comedic drama” even though nothing about the premise seems particularly comedic, darkly or otherwise. Maybe the robot is kind of funny, like Johnny 5 or C-3PO? Neither of them would be much help when you’re dealing with grief, since 3PO would get all flustered dealing with emotions and you’d have to explain to Johnny 5 what death is and he’d get all sad. Still… they would both be a little funny, it’s hard to deny that.
Anyway, this will be Jones’ third project at Apple TV+, and her second with both Apple TV+ and A24. Her first was Sofia Coppola’s low-key father-daughter romp On The Rocks, and her second will be the upcoming dystopian drama series Wool. Deadline says this show, which has a 10-episode order, is expected to film in Japan and that Lucy Tcherniak from Station Eleven and The End Of The F***ing World is attached to direct, but there’s no mention of when this new series might be coming to Apple TV+.