Morning Show an expensive look at 'cancel culture'

Here's one reason to fork over $4.99 for a subscription to Apple's new streaming TV network: so you can join those of us already trying to figure out how they spent all that effort and money ($15 million per episode, I read) and got two of Hollywood's most powerful women to sign on, co-produce and co-star in a drama series that is somehow so implausibly overblown and poorly envisioned that the one character you wind up relating to — even sympathizing with is a predatory creep.

The Morning Show, the marquee offering from Apple TV+'s long-anticipated recent launch, is hardly what I would describe as a car wreck, at least judging by the first three episodes (of 10) made available for this review. It is, however, a conspicuous fender bender, in which ambition has been rear-ended by self-importance, causing it to bump into a dump truck full of cliches.

Based loosely on the initial revelations of sexual misconduct that wiped Matt Lauer from the face of NBC's Today show in 2017, The Morning Show is set at the fictional UBA network, where longtime morning co-anchor Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) gets to work as usual at 4 a.m. to discover that her on-air partner of 15 years, Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell), has been fired for sexual misconduct against women who worked in subordinate jobs at the show.

With little in the way of details and the dawning awareness that the network kept the problem secret for some time before taking action (some of which has been leaked overnight to the New York Times), Alex must take the anchor desk alone and tell America the news of Mitch's dismissal — a challenging combination of personal grief and tonally appropriate sympathy for the accusers. Aniston's laserlike eyes bore in on the camera as she portrays Alex handling this task like a pro; the immediate reaction from America is that they are standing with her.

Out in leafy, lofty suburban estateland, Mitch watches Alex's broadcast with blazing indignation, rationalizing his misconduct as nothing more than consensual affairs. He lashes out at his agent, lawyers and crisis consultants, who are gathered in his living room to assess the damage, which is, in every sense, irreparable. Finally, he takes a fireplace poker to the flat-screen, just before his wife tells him she wants a divorce.

Carell wouldn't be cast in this part unless The Morning Show intended to go deep into the private and public torment of such a man: Do the clouds of rage lift long enough for Mitch to admit his wrongdoings? Will he cling to the hope that the world will somehow realize he's the victim here? Can he see and hear what the women are saying through the walls of raging entitlement? Let's put a pin in that for the moment.

Reese Witherspoon, in all her spitfire glory, plays Bradley Jackson, a roving reporter for an apparently conservative-leaning local news chain called Southeast News Network. Unwittingly (or perhaps not), Bradley becomes the news cycle's other big viral sensation when she is seen confronting a pushy protester at a West Virginia coal mine, lecturing him on his ignorance of energy issues as well as the ignorance of coal proponents.

In one of The Morning Show's more overwrought monologues, Bradley's tirade extends itself to the very essence of truth-telling in America. It draws several million shares and the attention of the morning show's best booker, Hannah Shoenfeld (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who pitches an interview with Bradley as a way to distract from the ongoing crisis at the network.

Bradley accepts the show's invitation to come to New York, where she gets grilled, live, over journalistic ethics by a skeptical and grumpy Alex. A crackly chemistry emerges between the women — indicating that a sisterly Savannah-and-Hoda origin story is not in the offing. Who is Bradley, and what original skill set might she bring to this glass anchor table? Whatever the camera loves about her, the network's news division president Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) is also delighted and immediately begins wooing Bradley for a permanent slot on the show, against the panicked objections of a stereotypically haggard, nerdy executive producer (Mark Duplass as Chip Black).

Neither Aniston nor Witherspoon paves new ground here, but they're giving better performances than the scripts they've been handed. At one point in the third episode, I began to wonder if they'd been miscast and ought to switch roles for a mightier — and more surprising, satisfying —challenge? I also wondered if The Morning Show has what it takes to steer well clear of the temptation to devolve into glamorous but disappointing fights that pit women against women.

As for Carell's role? A week ago, I reviewed HBO's Mrs. Fletcher and suggested that, as strong as the title character's story is, the slightly more fascinating parts of the series are about her college freshman son's disastrous encounters in a liberal arts atmosphere of gender and racial awareness. That review netted a few angry responses: How dare I take away from the fact that it's a show about a middle-aged woman?

Sorry to say, then, that the best part of The Morning Show is once again about the awful dude. Carell's Mitch experiences the full effects of "cancel culture." (Cancel culture is a modern internet phenomenon where a person is ejected from influence or fame by questionable actions. It is caused by a critical mass of people who are quick to judge and slow to question, according to the Urban Dictionary.)

Mitch does have the salve of being a multimillionaire, and the series is rightfully (if perhaps offensively) obsessed with his misery. He tries commiserating with other louts (Martin Short is particularly effective in a cameo as a disgraced but unrepentant film director); he tries to marshal his defenses into an effective comeback plan. As presented so far, The Morning Show is less a standoff between two women and instead hinges on one question: Will men ever listen?

Style on 11/19/2019