The Morning Show (2019)

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   Siskoid

   If there were ever a show concept that sounded like it came from Aaron Sorkin, it's The Morning Show. We have a high-profile television production that allows the writers to discuss topical issues, slanting towards utopia (real people in the biz rarely "do the right thing"), but where Sorkin would have given us a utopian cast, TMS has one "truth teller", and the rest are really rather selfish. But like a Sorkin production (whether Sports Night, Studio 60 or The Newsroom), there's something else you have to buy into: that the central show is as relevant and famous as it apparently is. Here, though there's a lot of talk of television dying in the internet age, that television morning show and its anchors are wayyy too famous/important. Maybe it's because I don't watch a lot of TV and have hardly ever watched a network morning program, but I do find it a little ridiculous in terms of the real world. That said, I have lived that life in miniature during my years as a French CBC radio producer, and have certainly done the morning shift, as well as news programs in other time slots. When the show uses real news - setting itself in the near past for better hindsight - it shines, but its MAIN theme is the #MeToo Movement. The show sparks off with the male anchor's sexual misconduct being outed and him being OUSTED from the show. Steve Carrel sticks around to show how a cancelled star reacts. Jennifer Aniston's prima donna co-star is left in a terrible position and Reese Witherspoon is the new, self-sabotaging journalist who fills the spot. However, it's Billy Crudup's oddball executive who's the most entertaining and intriguing. While the show skews towards drama, the cast is full of people who came up through comedy, proving once again that the discipline teaches versatility. The first season could have been a complete story, and the second is perhaps too focused on various characters' meltdowns in the wake of the first. It DOES drive towards Our Year of COVID and a pretty strong finale. But current events have definitely taken a back seat to personal drama and therefore to more something more ordinary. Still compelling, but it there may be a limit to how much you can take of Aniston's tailspins and 180s.
   
   By its third season, The Morning Show's stars aren't even on the Morning Show and forcing them back on there, or getting back to some of the ancillary cast that work on that program becomes more and more forced. It's become what it always threatened to - a glossy high-end soap. They've skipped ahead in time to after the pandemic, many fortunes have changed, but though real news events provide the background, it's now about who loves who, surviving further more scandals, and the kind of vague boardroom drama that used to feature in my mom's daytime soaps when I was growing up. The big arc of the season is a possible take-over of the network by a tech giant, and I'm still not sure how I feel about making John Hamm a handsome and smart stand-in for Elon Musk. Actually, I do know how I feel - edgy as hell. It makes me wince for all the reasons you can imagine, but it's one more departure into the realm of fantasy in a world where we're meant to explore real events. That the shows and networks are from an alternate universe is required, but when the world outside media starts looking like a distortion, verisimilitude starts to dissolve. Still fairly engaging drama, but it's gotten too far away from its original concept. 6 months 1 week ago

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