There hasn’t been a major, beloved show about the news during the Trump era. Last year’s Murphy Brown revival came close, but it never quite turned into the conversation piece that galvanizes people during a time when journalists are under attack, in more ways than one. Maybe the program that grips a fractured nation will be The Morning Show, Apple TV+’s forthcoming, star-studded drama about those reporters who do their jobs while most of us are still fumbling over oatmeal.
The show, due this fall, received its first teaser Monday, offering the maiden look at what we’re in for. Well, sort of: None of its famous faces are never seen, but they are heard, the images merely being a guided tour of the empty studio of a morning news show while an aural montage pastes together stray lines of very, very serious uttered by its name cast.
Who are they again? Why, two TV legends and one Oscar-winner who only semi-recently ventured onto the small screen. Those vets are Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell, doing their first full-time TV work in ages, while the other one is Reese Witherspoon. Aniston and Witherspoon will play two ambitious reporters, while Carell will take on the role of an anchor worried about his place in an ever-changing media landscape. Though two are known primarily for comedies, from the sounds of it they’ll be playing this one straight, with talk of journalistic responsibility and how “people are screaming for an honest conversation.”
Sure enough, as per EW, the show will address a wealth of hot-button topics, from the #MeToo movement to gender equality. That makes it sound a touch like The Newsroom, Aaron Sorkin’s contentious HBO show from the early aughts, which re-staged real news events so that Jeff Daniels’ character could spout Sorkinese about how they should have been covered by journalists. (And which Sorkin has threatened to revive.)
More important, perhaps Carell being tied up with another show really does mean that The Office revival everyone seems to want but him will be delayed just a bit more.
(Via EW)
