Rev iews
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 74 OCTOBER 30, 2019
MORNING: COURTESY OF APPLE. EFRON: JIM SPELLMAN/WIREIMAGE.RICK: COURTESY OF ADULT SWIM. BELL: FRAZER HARRISON/GETTY IMAGES. NOAH: EARL GIBSON III/GETTY IMAGES.Te l e v i s i o n
is setting up some sort of All
About Eve cat-fighting so hoary,
it makes one yearn for more time
with supporting players like
Gugu Mbatha-Raw as head booker
Hannah, Bel Powley as social
media manager Claire or Desean
K. Terry as a reporter who believes
he’s earned the co-anchor seat.
The series tries to have it both
ways with Mitch, treating him as
despicable while pairing him with
even worse characters (including
Martin Short as a Woody Allen-
esque director) and leveraging
Carell’s inherent likability to the
point where many viewers may
find the character too sympa-
thetic. It’s in the second episode
that the show recognizes “the
patriarchy” as its key adversary
and shifts gears from the all-too-
predictable woman-on-woman
power skirmish. Ideally, this
course-reversal would have been
accomplished in 30 minutes
rather than two tedious hours.
The third episode then steers
into periodically smart and
soapy goodness, and the stars
excel. Aniston nails the strained
composure of a woman who has
been overlooked and underesti-
mated and has finally decided
to take control. You can sense
Witherspoon’s giddiness at play-
ing a woman who proudly touts
her lack of positivity and declares
“I’m not a perky person!” And
there’s catharsis in stretches of
dialogue that sound like things
these marquee star-producers
have either said or wished they’d
said to condescending male
authority figures over the years.
Hopefully the next seven epi-
sodes make good on The Morning
Show’s late-breaking momentum.and Reese Witherspoon. But did
the behemoths at Apple really
get into the crowded original TV
marketplace to become the latest
perpetrators of “It eventually gets
better!” patience-testing?
Aniston plays Alex, longtime
host of, yes, The Morning Show, a
daytime TV institution showing
its age, ratings-wise. The broad-
cast is slapped with a scandal
when co-host Mitch (Steve Carell)
is forced to resign amid accusa-
tions of sexual impropriety. The
network’s up-and-coming news
head (Billy Crudup, in a perfor-
mance of reptilian charisma)
spots an opportunity to rejuve-
nate Morning Show and possibly
even squeeze Alex, but Alex isn’t
about to go down without a fight.
As this is happening, Bradley
(Witherspoon), a reporter with a
checkered past now in a last-gasp
job as a correspondent on a con-
servative cable station, becomes
an online sensation after an
incident at a coal mine protest. IsBradley’s unpredictable attitude
exactly what Morning Show needs
at this precarious moment?
The first episode, especially,
is an ungainly mishmash. There
are bland behind-the-scenes
elements gestated presum-
ably before the original round
of #MeToo accusations ended
Matt Lauer’s career on To d ay — a
real-life scandal Morning Show
borrows from in enough detail
that the series now feels quaint
after the graphic accusations in
Ronan Farrow’s new book. The
Mitch storyline subsumes the
making-of-a-show stuff, which
in turn ends up feeling like Sports
Night or The Newsroom without
snappy dialogue or perspective on
why daytime TV is unique. Things
aren’t helped by all the textureless
polish and derivative walk-and-
talks. (The first two episodes are
directed by Mimi Leder.)
As fine as Aniston and
Witherspoon are, all indica-
tions are that The Morning ShowJennifer Aniston (left) is a veteran television
anchor and Reese Witherspoon a reporter who
becomes her rival.Nearly every TV show or movie
has seams. A moment of hast-
ily rendered CG. A line of ADR
dialogue meant to smooth over
a plot hole. A mismatched bit of
lighting from a reshoot. The trick
is to get viewers so swept up that
they don’t notice the seams.
For at least its first two epi-
sodes, The Morning Show, the most
star-studded and vaunted offer-
ing of the Apple TV+ originals,
is perhaps the seam-iest drama
you’ll ever see. One needn’t know
the show’s bumpy creative history
— rare separate “created by” (Jay
Carson) and “developed by” (even-
tual showrunner Kerry Ehrin)
credits give some indication — to
notice it’s struggling and floun-
dering to find its focus.
After a brutally dull pilot and
a meandering second episode,
there are hints in the third hour
of a more satisfying, confident
version of The Morning Show, one
that actually gets value out of
leading ladies Jennifer Aniston
AIRDATE Friday, Nov. 1 (Apple TV+)
CAST Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon,
Steve Carell, Billy Crudup,
Mark Duplass, Gugu Mbatha-Raw
CREATOR Jay Carson
SHOWRUNNER Kerry EhrinThe Morning Show
Apple TV+’s drama stars Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston in a tale of
morning news program intrigue that struggles to find its footing By Daniel Fienberg