Crystal is an interesting choice to shepherd audiences on this creepy voyage, created by Sarah Thorp. The once-boyish comic actor leans into the trauma drama, his unshaven face gray, his clothes unkempt.

The comedic actor is taking a dramatic turn in Apple TV+'s psychological thriller that's reminiscent of 'The Sixth Sense.'

"Before" seems to have been inspired by the M. Night Shyamalan classic "The 6th Sense," about the dead therapist and the boy who can see him. At least "Before" had the decency to come up with a different ending. It's the beginning and everything in between that's the problem.

I'm not saying Apple TV+ has an issue with repetitive storytelling, but the new drama Before is the service's third series featuring a renowned comic actor playing a man mourning his dead wife. Not the streaming platform's third series ever to rely on that hoary trope.

Billy Crystal plays a child psychiatrist in the new Apple TV+ series “Before.” Crystal, an Emmy and Tony winner, may be known for his long history as a funnyman, but here he stars in a thriller — one filmed in New Jersey (see trailer below).

By “this,” I mean a series of 30-minute episodes where Crystal stabs his hand and neck with sharp objects, dreams of blood geysering out of his body and carves into a child’s skull with a scalpel to extract an imaginary worm. Somehow I don’t see the target audience.

Crystal’s return to the screen is not, in fact, in a comedy series. Though you might be confused after watching the baffling, misbegotten “Before.”