Top 10 Reasons You Need to Watch The Morning Show

“The Morning Show” puts women front-and-centre both in front and behind the camera. While it was originally created by Jay Carson, he left due to creative differences, and Kerry Ehrin, best known for her work on “Friday Night Lights”, took over as showrunner and executive producer. Joining her as executive producers are Kristin Hahn, Mimi Leder, and the show’s stars Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston. Leder will also serve as director. Given that the show is largely about women, it’s nice to know that it wasn’t simply written and produced by men.

One of the things that’s sure to change the modern television landscape is the launch of Apple TV+ on November 1st, 2019. The subscription video on demand web television service is launching with one documentary and eight original series, and “The Morning Show” is one of them. They’re employing a model that’s slightly different than other streaming services, which have tended to release entire seasons all at once. Instead, Apple TV+ will be releasing three episodes initially, and then one new one each week thereafter.

We know this show is in good hands, because it has a celebrated director behind it, who directed all ten of the first season’s episodes. Mimi Leder directed 2018’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic “On the Basis of Sex” as well as some of our favorite older movies like “Deep Impact” and “Pay It Forward”. But she also has a ton of experience with television, with multiple Emmy nominations under her belt and two wins. She’s worked on major series like “ER” and “The West Wing” as well as more recent picks like “The Leftovers”.

We’ve already dropped names like Aniston and Witherspoon, but these two renowned leading ladies aren’t the only A-list members of the cast of “The Morning Show”. Aniston plays Alex Levy, a long-time news reader whose world is thrown upside down by a scandal involving her co-anchor Mitch Kessler, played by Steve Carell. Witherspoon plays the up-and-comer who begins vying for Levy’s job when things go south. Also on the cast are Billy Crudup. and Mark Duplass, known for his work both on-screen and behind the scenes. Notably, this marks the first time that Aniston and Carell return to TV as show regulars, since “The Office” and “Friends” respectively.

Considering it was renewed for a second season before it was even released, there’s a pretty good chance this is going to be one of the hottest shows of the season. Only time will tell how popular Apple’s new streaming service will be, but considering the hype around this show (and it’s almost unbelievable cast) we have a feeling it’s going to be the reason a lot of people subscribe. At the preview event for the show, Reese Witherspoon added to the hype, describing the show as a “high-velocity thrill ride in which we pose questions without easy answers and shine a light on the fault lines in our society."

While “The Morning Show” isn’t directly based on real life events, it was heavily influenced by them. The show’s creators were inspired by Brian Stelter’s non-fiction book “Top of the Morning”, which looks at some of the behind the scenes drama of TV morning shows. The premise of the show will definitely remind many of the Matt Lauer scandal, when he was abruptly fired from “The Today Show” following allegations of sexual misconduct. This show takes a look at what happens after a scandal like that breaks, and how everyone else is affected.

Jennifer Aniston is, of course, best known for her role as Rachel Green on “Friends”. As any true “Friends” fan will remember, Reese Witherspoon appeared on the show’s sixth season to play Rachel’s bratty and spoiled younger sister Jill. Witherspoon may have only appeared on the show for two episodes, but her run was a memorable one. So we’re thrilled that these two fictional sisters will be reuniting to act on TV together again in “The Morning Show”. Considering how well they played off each other two decades ago on “Friends”, we can’t wait to see their chemistry now!

If you haven’t given much thought to the reality behind morning shows . . . you’re probably not alone. After all, they’re generally light and sunny, often sandwiching news between fun segments on fashion, cooking and pop culture. But life behind the scenes of this frothy programming can be cutthroat, and that’s exactly what “The Morning Show” is set to explore. As we already mentioned, this show is going to be loosely based on real stories about morning shows, and it’s clear from the premise that they’ll be drawing on real life examples for the show’s characters and story arcs.

The ways that men and women interact in the workplace has been a hot topic in the news and cultural consciousness. While the #MeToo movement has had a massive impact when it comes to sexual harassment, gender also plays a role in the subtler ins and outs of workplace relationships, especially when it comes to power dynamics. “The Morning Show” seems to have explicitly set out to address these issues in a high profile series, and we can’t wait to see what sort of questions they ask and how they discuss them.

This moment in history will undoubtedly be remembered for how conversations about sexual discrimination and harassment have finally come to the fore. With the Time’s Up and MeToo movements, it’s clear that there’s been a slow but inexorable shift in cultural awareness. “The Morning Show” plans to tackle this head on, using the platform they have to shed even more light on it. In an interview with the Radio Times, Reese and Aniston opined that times are definitely changing, with Reese adding that “Jen and I probably wouldn't have been able to make this show 10 years ago - but now people are taking us more seriously as creators and producers."