A Surprising Morning Jolt
‘The Morning Show’ got good?
Movies are often punching bags upon release. The reason why seems twofold: first, the film criticism field is a robust one with a legacy that critics would help viewers decide what was worthy of their time.¹ Second, movies cost a lot of money to make — many cost a massive amount of money to make. But, our current age of Disney blockbusters aside, that money doesn’t always guarantee success. In fact, sometimes the more money spent leads to the bigger disaster. This can be fun to watch, even if the movie itself isn’t.
Television shows seem less prone to the above. While there are television critics, because TV shows are released over a season, it’s hard to know just how good or bad a show is from the get-go.² And historically, TV shows haven’t had the scope or glamour of films. Read: they didn’t cost as much to make.³ As a result, they weren’t as fun to make fun of, even when bad.
Of course, all of this is changing in our era of streaming. And it’s hard to think of a show that was a bigger punching bag than The Morning Show was upon release back in November. While perhaps the star power of Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Anniston, and Steve Carell gave it some of the attributes of a big movie release, the fact that it was Apple’s first major foray into television also assured it would not be a low-key launch. The fact that said company is the most valuable in the world (pre-Aramco IPO) bestowed a big-budget movie vibe to the whole thing.⁴
And while the creators of the show felt that the association with Apple led to the initial bad buzz, I think it was much more straightforward than that: the initial episodes just weren’t very good. They weren’t awful. They were just entirely forgettable. Which is far worse than being awful.
This is even more clear now because of the way the first season ended: actually very well! Which is to say, The Morning Show got good!
Yes, that’s right, having just finished watching the entire season, I can now give this assessment. The early episodes ranged from bland to manic. From overly polished to overly product placementized. At points, it felt like they were going out of their way to try to be “edgy” to prove a point. Sure, there were compelling elements. Just enough to keep you watching. But without the aforementioned stars, I imagine most people would not have. And even with those stars, I’m guessing a lot of people didn’t.
And that was a mistake! Because again, it got pretty good! I would even venture to say that the last episode was very good! So much so that the entire rest of the first season almost felt like a Muhammad Ali rope-a-dope situation. Wear the audience and critics down with Sorkin-lite dialogue. Give us whiplash with the melodramatic love/hate relationship between Alex and Bradley. And again. And again. Then lull us to sleep with those never-ending shots of iPhones and HomePods. And then BAM! Hit us with the good stuff. The Morning Show turns mourning show which kickstarts a frenetic Network-esque turn. A surprisingly stuck landing!
But perhaps none of this should be too surprising. Many shows start slow. Many even start out entirely different than they end up — the peril of pilots. But it’s hard to remember a show that started so bland and ended so grand.⁵ Which is to say, the critics, myself included, were right. Until we were wrong.
¹ And the age of Rotten Tomatoes aggregation of said reviews has just made this even more pronounced.
² Though the all-at-once era of Netflix changes this equation, a bit. But Apple is not going with this method of distribution, of course.
³ That is, of course, changing quickly.
⁴ The fact that Apple’s actual first attempt at an original show, Planet of the Apps, was a total disaster probably didn’t do The Morning Show any favors.
⁵ Still, it seems like season two — which Apple has already committed to — is going to be even harder to pull off. They spent a lot of the capital we didn’t realize they were building on the ending this season. Cue the critics again!
