The Morning Show Review

Apple spends a fortune on its launch drama and gets reviews that never quite commit. The first season arrives with a serious subject, a network newsroom after a star anchor is removed for sexual misconduct, and a script that cannot decide whether it is an argument about power or a backstage melodrama about two women fighting over a desk. Critics said so at the time, and the series has not changed their minds so much as worn them down.

What it has is a cast doing far better work than the writing deserves. Jennifer Aniston plays Alex Levy as a woman whose self regard is the only thing holding her together, Reese Witherspoon gives Bradley the abrasive edge the part needs, and Billy Crudup walks off with the series and a supporting actor Emmy as an executive who enjoys chaos too much to stop it. Steve Carell is genuinely uncomfortable to watch, which is the point.

The trouble is the plotting. Each season invents a crisis large enough to reset the board, characters change position to serve the week, and the dialogue tips regularly into speeches that explain the show's own themes out loud. Later seasons stop pretending and lean into the soap, which reviewers have met with warmer and more honest notices than the self serious early run. It is glossy, well shot, expensively cast television that works best once you stop expecting it to be important.