Good ‘Morning,’ America?

‘The Morning Show’ debuted on Apple TV+ in November 2019, in The Before Times, when none of us knew from Covid and Apple TV+’s original offerings were as thin as creamerless coffee. Even then, the new show felt like a big and safe bet: it starred Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon as rivaling TV hosts and Steve Carell as a problematic Matt Lauer type out on his ass from the titular fictional show due to a #MeToo scandal.

Was The Morning Show supposed to be a workplace comedy? A dark, satiric drama? A frothy soap opera with lots of celebrity guest stars?

Yes. Yes. And, it turned out, yes. It tried to do all three things simultaneously, sometimes within the same scene or episode, leading to an extremely muddled, misfiring mess of a first season, a show that felt like it would end up canceled and reviled, a casualty of the anything-goes streaming TV bubble. The end of the first season included the death of a supporting character, a plotline that landed with a gross thud. For no good reason except the casting, Carell’s character kept hanging around the sidelines, foregrounded in all the worst ways as the character wrestled with the consequences of being canceled.

That’s when I tapped out. The end of the first season left me with no desire to continue watching; and, by 2020, we all had more important things to think about and watch.

But then something strange happened: The Morning Show morphed, in its second and currently-streaming third seasons, into something compellingly watchable even if it’s not exactly great TV. It leaned harder into its big-swings, like an entire season devoted to the pandemic (Season 2) and a third season that brings on Jon Hamm as an Elon-Musk-like tech mogul and the unholy marriage of the tech and media industry (but dumbed-down compared to ‘Succession.’ )

I simultaneously blame and credit the TV podcast Extra Hot Great for re-introducing me to the show with an episode that expertly pointed out the contradictions of watching The Morning Show: how it can be a great hate-watch, but also an extremely bonkers show to root for after its very shaky start. I binged Season Two just as Season Three was launching and was pleased to blaze through it because these things happened:

–The show ceded more of the spotlight to Season One’s breakout star and Emmy winner Billy Crudup as a slick, scheming, heartsick TV executive Cory Ellison. Of the entire cast, Crudup is the one who has most deftly balanced the show’s ridiculous demands: that he be funny, sincere, an asshole, kind and strident, often at the same time. The plotting and writing of the series often work at cross purposes to get a point across like, “The Media are trying, but times are tough!” and he somehow makes it work.

–The ascension of the great Greta Lee as the UBN’s embattled president Stella Bak; the third season gives her lots more to do and she’s knocking it out of the park, consistently.

–They finally removed Carell’s character, but not before an extended, painful and unnecessary Season Two detour to Italy.

–The show took on issues like racial inequity in the workplace and didn’t seem so foolish for taking on Very Important Things as it did in the first two seasons.

–A third-season plot twist  is so absurdly ridiculous and dumb and out of left field that it comes back around to being brilliant. Spoiler: Reese Witherspoon is covering Jan. 6 from INSIDE THE CAPITOL and she sees a MAGA guy beating up a cop and he removes his mask to reveal that OH NO IT’S HER DRUG ADDICT BROTHER! Then she ends up deleting the footage she shot to protect him. I was howling at the TV.

–Jon Hamm and Jennifer Aniston had very graphic sex on a recent episode. If that’s not enough for you to re-up your Apple TV+ subscription, I don’t know what to tell you.

The Morning Show is weirdly plotted and dumb and doesn’t always seem to know what it wants to be, but it has enough good-to-great elements that it’s always highly watchable. It tries hard to say important things about recent events, but doesn’t seem to stick to its convictions: the Jon Hamm character at first feels like it’s going to be a takedown of Elon Musk, but this version of Musk is reasonable, witty, charming, well-spoken and makes a compelling case for how tech might save journalism. So, really, he’s not like Elon Musk at all. What was the point of drawing that parallel?

That said, The Morning Show also has Juliana Margulies as Reese Witherspoon’s lover, Karen Pittman as a struggling producer, Holland Taylor as a grande dame of the UBN board and bit parts played by Hasan Minhaj, Marcia Gay Harden and (double-checks notes) Dave Grohl of The Foo Fighters. It had a commercial trip to space, actual outer space, this season. And once in a while Witherspoon and Aniston, the ostensible actual stars of the show, will share a scene and be like, “Girl, I love you.” “Girl, I love you, too! I used to hate you, but now we’re like sisters!” “Yeah!” and all seems right with the world, even if it’s through the lens of this very bloated, very inessential show that is also the one I look forward to watching most every week.

I can’t really explain that. Whether The Morning Show is good or bad doesn’t matter; it’s still Must-See Streaming.