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.

Puckish American comic Billy Crystal strikes out in a new direction as the star of the limited series "Before," premiering Friday on Apple TV+. Let us say at the outset that he is completely able to handle the assignment.

It's disjointed in its best moments and flat-out bad in its worst, and by the end of the series, it feels like a waste of time.