Bradley, recently fired from her reporting gig at some Podunk station after a shouting tirade went viral, is a firebrand and is in no way fit to anchor a morning news show in America’s biggest media market. Feeling this would be a prime opportunity for the ratings-suffering network to clean house, Levy makes a shocking announcement at an awards gala announcing Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) as her new co-host. When the fictional UBA network ousts Mitch Kessler (Steve Carrell) for sexual misconduct, he leaves his on-air wife, Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston), to weather the fallout. As I made my way through the ten-hour-long season, it’s easy to see the narrative hiccups, especially for someone like me who has studied broadcast journalism and understands how a talk show operates. Critical reviews for the first season were mixed.
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The allegation was the jumping-off point to the series I decided to check out after TED LASSO got a lot of buzz after its summer 2020 debut. Thinking it would be a more expensive version of Aaron Sorkin’s SPORTS NIGHT, THE MORNING SHOW is instead Sorkin’s THE NEWSROOM if the male anchor was implicated in the #MeToo movement and the news show had to scramble to deal with the fallout. Besides, I figured with those three actors and a morning show environment, TMS was going to be a soapy, lighthearted comedy about the crazy shenanigans that go into making a talk show. Apple TV+ service was the farthest thing from my mind in fall 2019, and a program starring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carell wasn’t going to change that. I can’t say I blame them a lot of money was thrown at this Apple original touting a behind-the-scenes look at a fictional, high-profile New York morning talk show. When Apple TV+ launched in November 2019 with a handful of programs, the one it was backing the hardest was THE MORNING SHOW. Travis Leamons // Film Critic THE MORNING SHOW: SEASON 2Ĭast: Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Billy Crudup, Steve Carell, Juliana Margulies, Karen Pittman, Mark Duplass, Nestor Carbonell, Desean Terry, and Marcia Gay HardenĪssembled talent and expectations are not mutual.