Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Morning Show’ Season 3 On Apple TV+, Where Jennifer Aniston And Reese Witherspoon Are Joined By Jon Hamm In The All-Star Cast

Since it debuted as one of Apple TV+‘s initial flagship shows in 2019, The Morning Show has been maddening to watch. There were lots of great performances among its A-list cast, and stories that hewed close to real-life stories without being preachy. But at other times, the show flew off into the stratosphere of ridiculousness, making it seem more like a fantasy series than anything else. As the show’s third season begins, two years after Season 2 debuted, there’s lots of evidence that nothing much has changed.

THE MORNING SHOW SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “March 10, 2022”. We see what looks like a video obituary for Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston), now back as the anchor of The Morning Show and UBA’s biggest personality.

The Gist: When we see Alex and her very loyal producer Chip Black (Mark Duplass) and her assistant Rena (Victoria Tate) watching, we find out that the clip reel is being put together because she’s going up in a sub-orbital rocket built by billionaire tech bro Paul Marks (Jon Hamm).

It seems that Alex is reluctant to do it, but it’s part of a deal that UBA’s CEO Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) struck with Marks to give both the network and Marks’ space program a boost. In the meantime, Alex wants to talk to Cory about her future with UBA, especially as she helped make their streaming service, UBA+, popular with her talk show Alex Unfiltered.

Meanwhile, Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) wakes up with a woman who isn’t Laura Peterson (Julianna Marguiles), who is now anchoring at a rival network. Bradley goes to work; she’s now the anchor of UBA’s evening news, and she’s been on the story of a woman in Texas who drives into Mexico to get abortion pills for women in the rural parts of the state who can’t find an abortion clinic nearby.

In a sauna session, Cory, who has buddied up to Marks of late, once again brings up the topic of Marks buying UBA. Marks feels that the amount Cory is floating is overpriced. Indeed, in a meeting with network chairperson Cybil Richards (Holland Taylor) and news president Stella Bak (Greta Lee), he’s told that all the money he’s funneling into UBA+ is causing every other division to operate in the black, causing cutbacks.

In the meantime, Stella has to tell Bradley that she’s killing the abortion story; because Bradley is too close to it, Stella is concerned that the fact that she’s one of the only news anchors who appeal to both liberals and conservatives, the story could alienate half her audience. When Alex presents Bradley with a First Amendment Award later that day for her work during the Jan. 6 insurrection, Bradley, already a half-bottle of Champagne in after confrontations with Laura and Cory, makes a short speech about not letting people restrict your voice.

Alex finally corners Cory and tells her she wants profit participation and a seat on the board. When he says her ask is unprecedented for talent, she says confidently, “I am unprecedented.”

When Alex and the team get to Texas for the launch, she finally meets Marks, and he takes her on a tour of the massive amount of land he owns nearby. He also lets it drop that he and Cory have been negotiating the sale of the network. Alex confronts Cory, and he gives her the reality of the situation: “We are officially in the Thunderdome; in five years, half the streaming services will be gone or bought out. In ten years, the internet will be 3D; you’ll literally be in people’s living rooms. We need to build a time machine to take us to the future, and that is going to require really deep pockets.”

Alex, feeling that she’s being used as a pawn in the negotiations, decides to take up Bradley’s abortion story after the woman driving over the border is arrested. This means she’s going to blow off the launch. Bradley, who has decided to go to Texas to pursue the story over Stella’s objections, is intercepted by Cory at the airport. Apparently, there’s some big secret that he helped her cover, so she owes him a massive favor, and that is in the form of going up in the rocket with him and Marks.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? At some point, The Morning Show started to feel a lot like The Newsroom, and Season 3 isn’t making us feel any different about that.

Our Take: Despite the unwieldy Gist section we tapped out above, we actually thought the first episode of The Morning Show‘s third season gave indications that the show would be a bit more focused than it was during its all-over-the-place second season. At least that’s what we thought during the episode’s first 45 minutes. The dialogue was sharp, even if it was a bit hyperrealistic, there seemed to be a focus around Cory trying to bring UBA into the 2020s, and Hamm felt like a fine addition to the show. We weren’t even annoyed that Alex and Bradley are now friends instead of rivals.

Then we get the rocket switcheroo fifteen minutes before the end of the episode, and we just threw up our hands. What got to us in season 2 were the moments that were just over-the-top unrealistic, not just for people working in network news but for anyone. What we thought through the first 45 minutes of this season was that showrunner Kerry Ehrin and her writers had tamped down that instinct and kept to having Alex, Bradley and their colleagues follow realistic news stories and follow their instincts. But then Bradley is entering that rocket, without any training, all because of some mysterious pact with Cory, and all of the show’s newfound realism flew right out the window.

Look, we get it; The Morning Show is at this point a network-news-based Grey’s Anatomy instead of something that comes even close to the show’s original source material, which was Brian Stelter’s book Top Of The Morning. We still appreciate the performances of Aniston, Witherspoon, Crudup, and the rest of the cast. And we think Hamm is going to be a great addition as tech douche Paul Marks. But we’re not sure we have the energy for Ehrin and company’s flights of fancy with this group of characters.

Sex and Skin: Like we mention above, Bradley wakes up next to a woman who isn’t Laura. That’s about it.

Parting Shot: As Bradley talks about her experience in zero-gravity live on the air, all communications with the orbiter go out. Alex and Chip watch the broadcast from a diner after she reported on the arrest of Bradley’s source. A look of shock and hope that everyone’s OK comes over Alex’s face.

Sleeper Star: Karen Pittman is still around as Mia Jordan, who’s the executive producer of The Morning Show, and she still shines in the few scenes where she’s featured. When she sees Laura yukking it up with Audra Khatri (Mindy Kaling) on the rival network she left for, Mia mutters, “I just want to crush her.” Also: Tig Notaro plays Amanda Robinson, who is Marks’ top executive, and her dry and sparse sense of humor is going to be refreshing on a show where people like to monologue.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Cory tells Alex she’s out of her lane by talking about him selling the network to Marks, she replies “Fuck my lane!”

Our Call: STREAM IT. We are hoping against hope that most of The Morning Show‘s third season will be more like the first episode’s first 45 minutes and less like the last 15. But given the evidence we’ve seen to this point, we don’t have a lot of faith that it will be that way.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.