For many people, kicking back and watching television is the ultimate way to relax after a long day at work. You find something calm and soothing, and just unwind and go along for the ride. If that’s your desired mode of TV consumption, then Apple TV’s new series “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” might not be for you. However, if you are up for a tense, twisty, unpredictable thriller that might make you feel like you’re having a panic attack and yet somehow enjoying it, then “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” is worth seeking out when it premieres on Wednesday, May 20.

The series stars Emmy Award winner Tatiana Maslany as Paula, a divorced mother barely holding her life together as she juggles a dead-end job, a nonexistent social life, and dark secrets she can’t quite outrun. When she finds herself in a dangerous situation, largely of her own making, her past mistakes and increasingly risky choices make her the target of everything from cam boys to scammers to gossipy coworkers to cold-blooded killers.

As Paula tries to unravel the mystery that has put her in grave danger — without jeopardizing her job as a magazine fact-checker or the time she gets with her daughter, Hazel — she ventures into a world she is wildly unprepared to survive. Because Paula is so often out of her depth, her choices range from misguided to downright destructive, giving the show a steady current of dark humor even as the stakes keep escalating.

That is where “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” finds its sweet spot, turning Paula’s anxiety, bad decisions, and mounting danger into something that is somehow thrilling, funny, and genuinely enjoyable to watch.

“It’s the tension between being like, ‘I know exactly why I’m doing what I’m doing, but maybe I’m not doing it in the right way,’” Maslany told me. “It feels like her sort of internal chaos externalized.”

The show seamlessly blends elements of thrillers, comedies, and even horror, but Paula’s reckless, self-defeating chaos is the thread binding it all together. It gives the action an unmistakable energy, sending the series careening between tones in ways few shows could pull off.

“For me, it was an opportunity to try to make anxiety enjoyable,” the show’s director, David Gordon Green, said. “You want the kind of pace and pulse of the paranoia, of the paranoid thriller, but you also want to have a good time.”

Green has directed across both television and film, including three Halloween movies — “Halloween,” “Halloween Kills,” and “Halloween Ends.” “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” leans into that horror experience. While the show doesn’t involve a vaguely supernatural serial killer hunting teenagers with a butcher knife, Green brings some of that horror vocabulary to the series, using uneasy framing, sharp cuts, and an ominous score to keep even the quieter moments on edge.

Watch the teaser for ‘Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’

Even though “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” throws Paula into harrowing circumstances at every turn, the show maintains an element of subversive joy and excitement throughout. Much of that is a credit to its incredible cast of performers, who are just as adept at playing the heightened drama as they are the story’s more subtly funny beats.

As Paula’s well-meaning and far more put-together ex-husband, Karl, Jake Johnson is Maslany’s most frequent sparring partner, trading the subtle digs and jabs that give the show so much of its humor. While Murray Bartlett, on the other hand, turns menace into an art form as the show’s lethal villain.

“We tried to write a great thriller that was populated by actors who are comedic, witty, clever, and cynical, and play the naturalism and the reality of it,” show creator David J. Rosen said.

While the humor in “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” serves as a release valve for the audience, Maslany sees it as vital to how Paula survives the show’s ever more perilous situations.

“That was a little bit of Paula’s survival mechanism,” the actor said. “You can only be at 1,000 for so many hours before you have to let the steam out, or else you’re gonna explode. She diffuses a lot with humor … when you’re really angry, you’re gonna maybe make a joke, and maybe that is the way that the barb comes out.”

Between her comedy background and her astonishing multi-character work on “Orphan Black,” few actors are better equipped to play someone this complex, multifaceted, and messy as Paula turns out to be in the show.

“Tatiana is so perfect because you just wanna follow her anywhere,” Rosen said. “She’s just so magnetic, so charming, and also so empathetic. When I’m watching her, I’m feeling what she’s feeling. She conveys it all and makes it fresh.”

I am not a typically anxious person, and I am not usually drawn to entertainment that tries to put me in that mindset. I tend to avoid horror movies, as they don’t generally appeal to me; I have even less patience for awkward, cringe comedy because I can’t stand sitting with those feelings. So, in most circumstances, I prefer shows that can be tense without making me live inside their anxiety.

“Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” is the exception. The show’s carefully calibrated tone had me on the edge of my seat and covering my eyes in its tensest moments, but also legitimately laughing during others. That balance allowed me to settle into and enjoy a style of entertainment that I don’t usually seek out. When things were getting a little too disquieting for me, there was always a well-placed zinger to serve as an emotional reset.

That tonal balance also extends to the rest of the ensemble, including Dolly de Leon, Jessy Hodges, Jon Michael Hill, Charlie Hall, Kiarra Hamagami Goldberg, Nola Wallace, and Brandon Flynn. Even as the show veers from thriller to comedy to something approaching horror, the performances keep those disparate tones from feeling out of sync or at war with each other.

“[If] you’re watching this [show] at the end of a hard day, you’re not looking to be depressed and oppressed,” Green said. “I think it’s taking some of those heightened qualities and turning it into a good time.”

It is not exactly comfort TV, but “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” is the rare panic spiral that somehow feels like a good time.

Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed

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