The Morning Show | Apple TV+ | Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon

[DeeCee]

The popular host of a morning news show is fired after multiple relationships with fellow staff members come to light. His cohost has to carry on. 

[Napoleon]

The show is not embarrassingly bad as people might expect after the big deal that was made about its negative reviews. But it commits the major crime of not having compelling characters. There's no convincing reason why Jennifer Aniston is acting unhinged, Reese having no agency, Billy Crudup acting like a creep. The Newsroom had its moments of ridiculousness but we were moved by those characters and there were also moments of brilliance; I hated the final season, but I miss that show.

[Lordmandeep]

Newsroom and The Morning Show are pretty good however both show how fake the media are ... 

[filmlover]

I didn't like the pilot. Felt too much like a Shonda Rhimes wannabe without any of the guilty pleasure qualities of even shows she merely produces like How to Get Away with Murder, yet at the same time clearly wants to be treated as a very serious prestige drama and ends up working as neither. Aniston is good but Reese was over the top and Carell just needs to go back to comedy. I won't continue with the rest.

[Napoleon]

4th episode was quite good actually.

 

The facetune on the two actresses was very distracting though, haven't noticed it in the previous episodes. 

[DeeCee]

 

[MikeQ]

The show is tonally inconsistent and doesn't always hit the mark, but I couldn't stop watching it. It has a quality about it, and there are some moments where it really does deal with its subject matter in an interesting way that we've never seen before. 

 

I am critical of some aspects, but the show ended on a high note with the final three episodes, where it shifted its focus to the real consequences of sexual assault, which put the superficiality of the morning show (and its high powered actors and careerists) that we had previously witnessed into focus. There's something interesting about juxtaposing all of that with the ways in which sexual assault creates real problems for those who have experienced it, and thus in turn showing how that culture (of a morning show or of society more broadly) makes invisible those who are least powerful and vulnerable.

 

Therefore, while it has its issues, the show came together in the finale in a way that felt purposeful, and on some level, impactful. I'm prepared to stick around for season 2, to see what direction they go in next. 

 

Peace,

Mike

Edited December 21, 2019 by MikeQ