There aren't a lot of May flowers on Apple TV+, but the streaming platform does have two big premieres, Movieweb reported.

Dark Matter, based on Blake Crouch's 2016 sci-fi thriller novel of the same name, will premiere on May 8. The story follows college physics professor Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton) who is kidnapped on his way home to his wife Daniela (Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly) and son Charlie (Oakes Fegley).

He wakes up in a metal cube in a science laboratory. Jason finds out that he is now in an alternate Chicago. In this version, he decided not to marry Daniela and seriously pursued his career as a physicist. In this world, the alternate version of himself built the cube that allows its occupants to move between the many worlds that come about from all the possible outcomes of all events.

Apple TV+ schools you on the many-worlds interpretation

Jason learns later on that the person who kidnapped and drugged him was the Jason of this world, whom he names Jason2. He — Jason — is determined to return to his own version of Chicago with the help of Jason2's therapist, Amanda (Alice Braga). However, since neither one of them knows exactly how to use the cube, they get transported to other parallel worlds.

Dark Matter draws on quantum mechanics' many-worlds interpretation. This philosophy postulates that every time an individual makes a decision, version of worlds split off from the one, one lives in to accommodate for those choices one did not make. If it's a little convoluted, here's an easier way to understand it: parallel universes. Or better yet, multiverses.

The other big Apple TV+ premiere is on May 17 of the limited series The Big Cigar. The series is described as a biographical drama thriller based on the 2012 Playboy article of the same name by Joshuah Bearman. The Big Cigar will release two episodes on May 17. The other four will be released weekly until June 14.

Don Cheadle serves as executive producer and directed the first two episodes. Janine Sherman Barrois serves as showrunner and writer. The source article's author, Bearman, co-wrote the final episode with Jim Hecht.

The show follows the FBI manhunt for Black Panther Party co-founder Huey. P Newton (Andre Holland). Newton escaped authorities with the help of several celebrity radicals.

In the 1970s, in order to avoid going to prison for murder, Newton asks the help of American film producer Bert Schneider (Alessandro Nivola), who produced Easy Rider. He ends up escaping to Cuba with his then-girlfriend and later on wife Gwen Fontaine (Tiffany Boone).

Joining Holland, Nivola and Boone are Marc Menchaca (Agent Sydney Clark), P.J. Byrne (Stephen Blauner) and Jordane Christie (Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale).

See Apple TV+'s full schedule of new and returning series for May:

May 1

  • Acapulco (Season 3)

May 8

  • Dark Matter (Premiere)

May 17

  • The Big Cigar (Premiere)

May 22

  • Trying (Season 4)