Each of us has experienced insomnia at least once in our lives. You lie there, mentally counting sheep, but sleep doesn't come. Apple TV+ offers its own ways to combat this annoying condition in the new series 'Still Up'.

Night is a special time, regardless of the month on the calendar. It's a time for strange, often very spontaneous actions. It's a time for revelations and sudden confessions. It's a time of magic, when the foreseeable future narrows to a small oval lit by a streetlamp. It's a time of mystery and the unknown lurking in the darkness. In a way, it's a time of freedom, but also a time of fear. It's a time of bright lights and distant echoes of lonely cars. It's a time to take off masks, because eyes are not visible. And everything you do during this dark time of day depends only on you.

‘Still Up’ is a series that harmoniously immerses us in just such a kingdom of darkness. And it does so so naturally that we don't even notice that there is almost not a single shot taken in daylight. This is a story about two friends suffering from insomnia. Her name is Lisa (Antonia Thomas), and his is Danny (Craig Roberts). Each new episode is an attempt to find out not only how to deal with insomnia (and whether it can be overcome at all, if, as it seems, the problem is not physiological), but also what true intimacy between people is.

The episodes start in different places, with different premises, and are barely connected to each other. It's as if we are thrown from one cauldron of boiling water into another, and we learn to swim as we go. What remains constant is that the characters are constantly communicating, and most importantly, they do so via video call. Why can't they go for a walk together? You'll find out if you start watching the series. Sorry, but I really don't want to spoil anything, even the little things.

We observe the nightlife of two lonely people for whom insomnia is, in a sense, not only a suffering but also a blessing. Because it is in the moments when the whole city falls asleep that they stop feeling lonely. ‘Still Up’ is a story about how closeness is not measured by the number of steps to a person. There is much more to this feeling: it's about whose number you know by heart, about spontaneous late-night calls, about awkward conversations during someone else's date, and about who will come to find you drunk, knowing only the neighborhood and the name of the laundromat.

The series doesn't try to play big or tackle serious themes. ‘Still Up’ initially understands that its area of responsibility is the simple everyday life of people trying to live this life. So the themes here are small, but that doesn't mean they are insignificant. How to survive a bachelorette party you didn't want to go to, how to buy medicine when the pharmacist suddenly dies, how to go on a camping trip with your boyfriend's family without killing his parents. These are situations you can't just make up. They happen because life is chaotic and inconsistent. And all of this, brick by brick, shapes us as people and how we relate to others. In these mundane moments, we are ourselves.

And ‘Still Up’ is also very beautifully shot. Filming in the dark is quite a challenge, as you need to set up the lighting in a special way and think through the composition of each frame. And while darkness in cinema is often used to create a frightening and repulsive atmosphere, in this series it is very soft and enveloping, like a blanket. And thanks to the natural chemistry that is immediately felt between Antonia Thomas and Craig Roberts, this blanket becomes even cozier and more pleasant.

Apple TV + continues its line of heartfelt series, which was once launched by ‘Ted Lasso’. Then came ‘Shrinking’ and ‘Platonic’, albeit with different moods, but both dedicated to people and their emotions. And now ‘Still Up’ (even without a star cast). It's as if someone in the streaming management is going through a personal crisis and trying to figure themselves out. But in any case, watching such kind shows is always joyful and pleasant. And if this continues, soon Apple TV+ will earn a second title: in addition to being a haven for visually beautiful sci-fi series, it will also become the home of heartfelt dramedies about us.