Apple TV has unveiled the first images from ‘Prodigies‘, a new seven-episode romantic comedy starring Will Sharpe (The White Lotus, A Real Pain) and Ayo Edebiri (The Bear, Bottoms), alongside confirmation that the series will arrive globally in February. The pair play a couple who have been together since they were nine years old. Which sounds rather lovely, until you consider just how many years they’ve had to perfect the art of getting on each other’s nerves.
The series follows Didi (Edebiri) and Ren (Sharpe), two former child prodigies who are now in their 30s and beginning to wonder what happened to all that extraordinary potential. They were once the sort of children everyone expected to change the world. Instead, they’ve ended up with something rather more familiar: ordinary adult lives, complicated ambitions, and a relationship neither has ever really known life without.
A Romantic Comedy About What Happens After Happily Ever After
Most romantic comedies spend their time getting two people together, usually after a series of misunderstandings, disastrous dates and at least one spectacularly inconvenient declaration of love. ‘Prodigies’ starts from almost the opposite position. Didi and Ren have been a couple for most of their lives, so the question isn’t whether they’ll fall in love, but what happens when the people they’ve become no longer quite match the people they imagined they’d be.
The story takes the pair from London to Tokyo, via Virginia, as they reassess both their shared history and their individual ambitions. Were they destined for extraordinary things, or did the adults around them simply set the bar impossibly high? And when you’ve been with someone since primary school, how do you work out which parts of your life are genuinely yours?
It’s an interesting twist on the usual rom-com formula, particularly as the central relationship isn’t a new romance with all the excitement of discovery. It’s an established partnership carrying decades of memories, expectations and potentially a few regrets. Of course, having two people who know each other that well doesn’t necessarily mean they understand each other quite as well as they think.
Will Sharpe Leads An Impressive Cast
As well as playing Ren, Sharpe created, wrote, directed and executive produced the seven-part series. He’s previously demonstrated a knack for stories about awkward relationships and complicated people, and this looks like another opportunity to explore both, this time with Edebiri as his co-lead and fellow executive producer.
The supporting cast is quite the collection of familiar faces, including John Malkovich (Being John Malkovich), Tobias Menzies (The Crown), Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm), Sophia Di Martino (Loki), Rina Sawayama (John Wick: Chapter 4) and Reece Shearsmith (Inside No. 9). Also appearing are Yumi Asō, Dame Meera Syal (The Kumars at No. 42) and Andrene Ward-Hammond. Apple has not yet revealed how those characters fit into Didi and Ren’s story, so there’s still plenty to discover beyond the initial premise.
‘Prodigies’ comes from SISTER Pictures, the production company behind acclaimed dramas including ‘This Is Going to Hurt’ and ‘Black Doves’. Naomi De Pear, Katie Carpenter and Jane Featherstone executive produce for SISTER, alongside Sharpe for Fukuda Films and Edebiri. It marks an intriguing combination of talent for a story that appears less interested in the traditional fairytale ending than in what happens when the fairytale has been going on for twenty years.
Apple TV will launch the first two episodes together, with the remaining five arriving weekly through March. So viewers will have time to ponder the state of Didi and Ren’s relationship between episodes, rather than racing through all seven in one sitting.
‘Prodigies‘ Season 1 premieres Wednesday, 10th February 2027 on Apple TV.
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