The guilty pleasures are back in the newsroom

Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston in the new season of ‘The Morning Show’

What wonderful houses the staff of UBA network seem to live in! Granted they are the top-level folks, but those ivory towers are succulent. No poky little flats for these exotic creatures — for theirs is the kingdom, the power and the glory, and the picture windows overlooking the Manhattan skyline.

In its third season about the daily power plays in a news network, The Morning Show covers another bunch of current topics from the January 6 United States Capitol attack in 2021 and a hack attack leading to embarrassing leaks to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and the ‘Naatu naatu’ wave for good measure. And in the midst of all this turmoil, our favourite news people are living their lives and finding love amidst lots of lovely labels and homes.

Season 2 ended with America watching transfixed as their sweetheart and go-getter co-host of The Morning Show, Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston), battled COVID-19. The first episode of Season 3 opens with Alex’s obit. Of course, she is not dead! She is accompanying tech billionaire Paul Marks (Jon Hamm) on a little trip to space on the rocket his company has designed.

Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon), the other TMS co-host, has her share of problems starting with but not exclusive to her brother Hal (Joe Tippett), and her relationship with Laura (Julianna Margulies), a former news anchor at UBA. Chip (Mark Duplass), executive producer of TMS, does what he does best — making Alex’s life easy for her. Alex takes him and his service for granted — has she however gone too far this time?

Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup), the CEO of UBA, is efficiently fighting fires like he always does, neatly ducking or batting back threats and snipes from board members Cybil (Holland Taylor) and Leonard (Stephen Fry), advertisers, competitors, bankers, the talent, FBI, and his mum.

Producer Mia (Karen Pittman) is holding things together while wondering if sending photographer Andre (Clive Standen) on a dangerous assignment was such a good idea and also what holding on to his photographs from said war zone till she has news of his safety would do to the ratings.

President of UBA’s news division, Stella (Greta Lee), might have her ultimate dream come true, but is she willing to pay the price? Christine (Nicole Beharie), the new co-host of TMS, has a massive social media presence but is about to discover the price of that fickle master.

Marks would like to buy UBA, but what are his further plans for the legacy company? There seems to be something shady happening in his company, too. Marks’ fixer, Amanda (Tig Notaro), is smoothing things out as much as possible for her boss. Hamm is an excellent addition to the all-star cast of the show, suave and smarmy by turns. Ditto for Fry as the pucca sahib board member—his flat refusal to be Cory’s “bin man” was so fun.

While all headline grabbers are present and accounted for, if anyone goes to The Morning Show for a social commentary on the state of the media, they are bound to be disappointed. Go to the show for the guilty pleasure of watching beautifully dressed, shiny people boiling lobsters alive in a picture-perfect kitchen or mouthing lines such as “you are a middle-aged adrenaline junkie who would rather bounce between wars than commit to a zip code”, (ouch) and satisfaction is guaranteed. And there is also that lovely cover of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in the Dark’… Bliss.

The Morning Show is presently streaming on Apple TV+ with weekly episodes of Season 3 dropping every Wednesday till October 25, 2023