Review: Apple’s ‘Morning Show’? Wait for the Upgrade

The sexual-harassment story line provides “The Morning Show” with greater stakes than whose name ends up on the multi-million-dollar paycheck. The show avoids easy posturing, instead exploring Alex’s upheaval after learning “My TV husband is a sexual predator.” (Mitch complains, self-pityingly, that his offenses weren’t as bad as Harvey Weinstein’s and that he’s the victim of a social overcorrection, though it’s unclear how credible he is.)

But while that story is the igniting event, it doesn’t feel integrated with the original premise so much as jury-rigged onto it, like an ungainly adapter plugged into an outmoded jack. Because we begin with Mitch’s firing, he can’t be part of the action; but because he’s played by Steve Carell, he needs his screen time. So he’s mostly left to bluster and primal-scream on the periphery, like a windup toy wearing itself out in the corner of a playroom.

Mind you, Carell is good in his role, as are his co-stars. But they’re appearing in different shows. He’s in a bleak toxic-masculinity drama. Aniston is in a cutting corporate satire. Witherspoon is in an inspiring underdog story. Billy Crudup, as a lizardy media exec, is in an off-brand “Succession.”

Aniston is the standout, as a woman with a reputation as “difficult” — that is, a woman who’s looked out for her interests, surrounded by men who either want to oust her or leave messes for her to clean up. (A possible exception is her producer, played by Mark Duplass, a perma-stressed zombie trying to keep the glass house from collapsing.)

Alex is sympathetic but complicated. She may have enabled Mitch. As we see when the network recruits Bradley, she is not always a great ally to other women, because she has come to feel she has no allies in this world. She lives in a state of constant high alert, which she can only release at the rare blissful moment that an elevator door closes.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/arts/television/the-morning-show-apple.html?emc=rss&partner=rss