yeah this one was bad for a minute. the day or day after i originally posted this i noticed there was a 17.1 update available, and also a 17.2 update was already in beta if you wanted it, but neither would download for me. both would just stall starting the dl, meanwhile apps were still freezing/crashing in the background. frustratingly tried for the next couple days to get either update to download with no luck just stalling and restarting. it wasn't until a couple/few days later when the 17.2 update came out of beta and nullified the 17.1 update, did an update finally download install and everything running smooth again. 17.0/17.1 must have been a bad batch.
the weirdest part of it all was just how unstable everything was, because apple tv as an experience is generally one of the most solid.