I have technically better things in my queue to watch, for sure. But when there’s a new episode of TMS available, those boringly great series fall to the wayside. There is a unique thrill Morning Show elicits—the ideal compromise between the “This is so stupid and that’s the point” turn-your-brain-off allure that I imagine reality TV holds for some people, mixed with the “I can’t take my eyes off of this” intrigue of waiting for the next shoe to drop, character to be backstabbed etc. It is the most fun I’ve had watching TV all fall.
Philistines will tell you season 3 was the weakest season of TMS. They are mistaken—that honor goes to season 1, which tried to zero in on the petty Hollywood intrigue of the behind-the-scenes machinations of network news while presenting a faithful portrait of workplace sexual misconduct and abuse and the power systems that enable it to run unchecked. Thankfully, the second season relegated Carell’s nationally beloved newsman turned sex pest Mitch Kessler (they may as well have named him Pat Fowler) to the sidelines before dispensing with him altogether, leaving a much more manageable co-lead system for Aniston and Witherspoon’s ambitious anchors—Aniston’s Alex Levy, the perpetually exasperated, self-involved veteran, self conscious about how little power her clout’s actually afforded her, and Reese as Bradley Jackson, the plucky Southern outsider too pure and righteous to play corporate, selfish games (or is she?).
Season 3 put both women at a crossroads, with shiny attractive demons to tempt their souls. For Alex, that devil was Don Draper—TMS cleverly cast Jon Hamm against type, in one of his most outwardly villainous roles (pre-Fargo, anyway), as a space-obsessed billionaire with diabolical designs on TMS’ parent network UBA. Meanwhile Bradley’s dance with the dark side was retroactive—the two-year time jump that starts season 3 finds her finally away from the frivolity of morning news and in her coveted evening slot, while a long-simmering mystery alluding to something that happened during the interim (that gets blatantly, ominously referenced across the first five episodes) eventually reveals the fucked-up way she earned her seat.
That sounds like a pretty good season of dramatic television on paper, which makes me sound like I’m just being a hater. Well, there are several creative choices ranging from bemusing to downright nutty that complicate a series for which compelling loglines have never been a problem. For one, it’s not enough for the series to take on MeToo or the real-life plutocrats Hamm’s character somewhat generously mirrors—instead of ripping from the headlines, the actual headlines are happening around, and worse, to the characters. Think of the Osama bin Laden episode of The Newsroom, except with a scene like this lurking around the corner in every episode.
Season 2 treated the impending pandemic the way Buffy hyped up its Big Bads, only to end with Jennifer Aniston dramatizing the experience of Covid symptoms with performance choices more akin to, I don’t know, something like early-onset vampirism. This is a recommendation piece at the end of the day, so I don’t want to spoil how the most recent season incorporated January 6th, but reader just know it is incredible(ly stupid). The Roe vs Wade overturn leak goes down during a UBA office party, at which point a woman—the supremely talented Nicole Beharie as new anchor Chris, more on her shortly—bursts out of a bathroom stall and snarls, to no one in particular, “They’re overturning Roe!”
