The Morning Show (Season 3)

Available on Apple TV+

When The Morning Show initially arrived on our screens at the tail end of 2019, it quickly achieved the lofty status of ‘prestige television’ on account of its star-studded cast, helmed by Jennifer Anniston and Reese Witherspoon, and it’s impressive examination of the #MeToo movement.

Its journey since then has been slightly less assured, mostly due to a second season that offered a well-meaning but ultimately heavy-handed assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, it was difficult to know what to expect from this third voyage, which focuses on the efforts of an Elon Musk-esque billionaire (played by Mad Men star Jon Hamm) to purchase the UBA news network.

Whatever my expectations were, they had exited via the front window by the time the first episode had ended with Witherspoon’s character navel-gazing about the conflict in Ukraine whilst broadcasting live from, believe it or not, a spaceship. If there had always been a soap opera aspect to The Morning Show, this is the season where creator Jay Carson and co. fully embrace it.

The end product is a show that is decidedly more ‘guilty pleasure’ territory than it is prestige, with the aforementioned Witherspoon and co-star Anniston unafraid to ham it up as the series veers sporadically between fictitious and real-life topics without ever really saying anything of substance about either. Nonetheless, if one adopts a laissez faire mentality towards this rather radical tonal shift, there is plenty of enjoyment to be found in The Morning Show’s gloriously shouty brand of ridiculousness.

Indeed, while its social commentary may be rendered null and void, this series is emphatically more entertaining than its predecessor, making the prospect of a fourth outing more tantalising than it otherwise would have been.