“The Morning Show” Review by Josh Davis
November 14, 2019 7:02 am |
“The Morning Show,” one of flagships of Apple TV+, wants to be an Aaron Sorkin prestige show, but comes off closer to “Melrose Place” than “The West Wing.”
The show looks great. Showrunner Mimi Leder (“The Leftovers,” “Shameless”) directs the first two episodes and the cast is stacked with A-
Listers and prestige actors, including Jennifer Anniston (as Alex Levy), Reese Witherspoon (as Bradley Jackson) and Steve Carrell (as Mitch Kessler).
Billy Crudup and Mark Duplass star in supporting roles.
In the opening scenes, we find out that Kessler, the co-anchor of a popular morning show, has been charged with sexual misconduct. Levy, his now former co-host and apparently a former flame, is crushed by the news and has to go on the air to save the show and explain his misdeeds.
She’s also a fading star who the network has been quietly trying to replace.
Enter Jackson, a plucky, foul-mouthed veteran reporter who never really had her big break. She has something of a righteous meltdown while shooting a remote on location and becomes an internet sensation, landing an interview on “The Morning Show,” where she instantly tangles with Levy. One episode later, during an awards banquet when Levy is seemingly up against the wall and on the wrong side of contract renegotiations, she spontaneously announces Jackson as her new co-host while accepting a major award in front of a huge live audience, forcing the studio’s hand. Her motivations are unclear, other than to cause chaos.
Rather than handle the sexual misconduct plot with sensitivity, the show plays on sensationalism. The producers are seemingly trying to turn a mirror on a society plagued with shallowness and excess, but the effect often ends up more vapid than insightful. Worse still, the two lead women in the early episodes are pitted as cat-fighting rivals.
The show constantly goes over the top. Levy, at one point, confronts a hostile room of network executives and snarls, “America loves me and, therefore, I own America.”
Anniston chews scenery and is game, but doesn’t always come off great as an actor, largely because of what she has to work with. Her motivations as a character is inconsistent and unclear, and she seems to veer from pompous and self-interested, to righteous trailblazer.
Witherspoon fares better and seems to know how to dance over the subpar material. She plays a smart woman with integrity who happens to come from the south but doesn’t sink to the shallow depths of a stereotype. Still, she’s a loose cannon one moment and the next is a deer in headlights during one of many out-of-place “aw shucks” moments.
Crudup is a highlight as a sly network executive coming in from the outside, but his character motivations also feel inconsistent.
Carrell’s character, meanwhile, is tone deaf and he comes off as gross rather than a timely or insightful reflection of our fragile times. He’s earnest and trying to find an insightful way to deal with his situation, but the fact that he views himself as a victim is poorly timed, at best.
By the end of the third episode, the show starts to find its footing and teases moving out of the clunkiness of pilot, but time will tell if the writers have found their footing.
The show tries to be fast-paced and clever, but (so far) it can’t keep up with its lofty goals. It’s well shot, generally well-acted TV that’s largely trashy.
In the first two episodes, there’s a recurring gag about “Gilmore Girls: The Musical” as a metaphor for what’s wrong with today’s pop culture. Ultimately, that’s a show I’d rather watch.
PCL Rating: Low Taste It
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: ROTTEN
Share this:
Tags: Josh Davis, pop culture leftovers, The Morning Show 2019, The Morning Show Apple TV Plus
Categorised in: Television Reviews
This post was written by Leftover Brian
Comments are closed here.