We’re three episodes into Season 3 of The Morning Show, Apple TV+’s Emmy-winning series that examines the professional and personal lives of the people running a major television network. While Season 1 focused on the aftermath of a sex scandal at the network, Season 2 had far more competing plots (although it did give its dramatic spin on the COVID-19 pandemic, it played more as an undercurrent until the last few episodes). Season 3 seems to be following suit, attacking several topical social issues without giving any of them the attention they deserve.
Season 3 Already Has Too Many Themes
So far this season, we’ve had episodes touching on the show’s mainstay themes like sexism, racism, power, and corporate politics, but we’ve added topics like abortion, the border, cyber security, and privacy. Yes, The Morning Show has attempted to tackle all of those themes and more in just three episodes this season.
It’s also added some new characters – Christina (Nicole Beharie), an athlete-turned-news-anchor at UBA, and Paul Marks (Jon Hamm), a billionaire looking to purchase a legacy news network. The show also, somewhat inexplicably, had an episode about private space travel. Yeah, there’s a lot going on.
And it’s a bit of a shame that The Morning Show is so intent on covering every topic that a television network could possibly face. Each one of them is deserving of attention, but in trying to cover so much in just 10 episodes, too many of the themes become strange, forgettable storylines.
Reese Witherspoon in ‘The Morning Show’
What Saves The Morning Show From Falling Flat
Not everything at The Morning Show is bad, though. There’s actually quite a lot to enjoy, namely the acting. The cast is full of seasoned, commanding actors – Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Karen Pittman, Billy Crudup, and Holland Taylor to name a few – who continuously deliver strong performances worthy of awards (newcomer Beharie and Taylor’s interview scene in Episode 3 was particularly powerful). And even though there’s a lot to follow, the plots are mostly intriguing.
The Morning Show is better this season than either of its first two, and it’s already renewed for a fourth. Despite our complaints, we’ll continue tuning in to see what fresh drama UBA is facing and how its anchors and crew are handling it. We will, however, keep hoping that the show will shed a few extraneous plotlines in favor of more robust storylines around the themes it was built on.
The Morning Show is streaming now on Apple TV+.