The Morning Show - Season 2
The Morning Show, also known as Morning Wars in Australia and Indonesia,[1][2] is an American drama television series starring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carell, that premiered on Apple TV+ on November 1, 2019.[3][4] The series is inspired by Brian Stelter's 2013 book Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV.[2][5] The show examines the characters and culture behind a network broadcast morning news program. After allegations of sexual misconduct, the male coanchor of the program is forced off the show. Aspects of the #MeToo movement are examined from multiple perspectives, as more and more information comes out regarding said misconduct.
The Morning Show - Season 2
Alex Levy anchors The Morning Show (TMS), a popular morning news program broadcast from Manhattan on the UBA network, which has excellent viewership ratings and is perceived to have changed the face of American television.
In the first season, after her on-air partner of 15 years, Mitch Kessler, is fired amidst a sexual misconduct scandal, Alex fights to retain her job as top news anchor while sparking a rivalry with Bradley Jackson, a haphazard field reporter whose series of impulsive decisions brings her into a new world of television journalism.
In the second season, the network CEO attempts to convince Alex to return as the COVID-19 pandemic gradually engulfs the United States and the show itself, whilst Bradley deals with an identity crisis.
On November 8, 2017, it was announced that Apple had given the production a series order consisting of two seasons of ten episodes apiece. The series was set to be executive produced by Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Jay Carson, and Michael Ellenberg. Carson was expected to act as a writer and showrunner for the series as well. Production companies involved with the series were slated to consist of Media Res, Echo Films, and Hello Sunshine.[3][12][13] On April 4, 2018, it was announced that Carson had departed the production over creative differences. He was replaced as executive producer and showrunner by Kerry Ehrin.[14] On July 11, 2018, it was reported that Mimi Leder would serve as a director and executive producer for the series.[15] On October 23, 2018, it was reported that Kristin Hahn and Lauren Levy Neustadter would serve as additional executive producers for the series.[16]
On June 22, 2020, Aniston revealed in a Variety interview with Lisa Kudrow that the show's development began prior to the Me Too movement, but was ultimately reworked to include and partially focus on it.[17]
The show cost $15 million per episode, with Aniston and Witherspoon each earning $2 million per episode, not including producing fees and ownership points.[18] On January 10, 2022, Apple renewed the series for a third season.[7]
On October 9, 2020, Greta Lee and Ruairi O'Connor officially joined the second season as regular characters.[19] On November 13, 2020, Hasan Minhaj was also announced as a new cast member.[20] On December 3, 2020, Julianna Margulies announced she joined the second season of the series.[21] In August 2022, it was announced that Jon Hamm and Nicole Beharie had joined the main cast for the third season, with Tig Notaro joining in a recurring role.[22][23][24]
Principal photography for the first season commenced on October 31, 2018, at the James Oviatt Building in Los Angeles.[25] Filming continued in Los Angeles until filming started in New York City on May 9, 2019.[26] Production on the first season also concluded that May, after seven months of filming.[27]
Production on the second season began on February 24, 2020.[28] On March 12, 2020, Apple TV+ halted production on the series due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[29] The second season resumed filming on October 19, 2020.[30] Between February and March 2021, Steve Carell, Jennifer Aniston, Mark Duplass, and Hannah Leder were spotted in Los Angeles filming the second season.[31][32] On May 18, 2021, filming for season two concluded.[33]
After the Apple Special Event of March 25, 2019, Witherspoon announced on Instagram that the series would premiere in the fall of 2019.[4] It premiered on Apple TV+ on November 1, 2019.[3][4] In January 2021, Apple announced that the second season would premiere in 2021.[35] The second season premiered on September 17, 2021.[6]
During the Apple Special Event, a teaser trailer was released with footage from the series as well as footage from other original series set to premiere on Apple TV+.[36] Furthermore, Aniston, Witherspoon, and Carell were at the event to promote the series.[37] On August 12, 2019, Apple released a first look trailer for the series.[38] It was also revealed that the series would be titled Morning Wars in Australia, in order to distinguish the series from the Australian morning talk show of the same name.[1]
The second season of the series received a 67% from Rotten Tomatoes based on 51 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "The Morning Show's second season has a slew of stupendous performances - but too many characters attempting to address too many hot-button issues makes it hard to know what any of them are actually trying to say."[41] At Metacritic, the website gave the second season a 60 out of 100, based on 25 reviews.[42]
According to TV analytics provider TVision, The Morning Show has been viewed by panel members 5.03 times as much as the average Apple TV+ original series or shows TVision has measured since Apple TV+ launched in November 2019.[46] The series became the second most watched Apple TV+ series after Ted Lasso.[46]
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As the series progressed it became clear that Mitch was, indeed, a villain of sorts. It's clear that he is responsible for all of his bad deeds and should be held accountable for his actions. At least, that is the message season 1 gives. Season 2 gives a very different one. Living in Italy now, Mitch has found a haven in the country, and in love interest, Paola (Valeria Golino).
Season 2 of The Morning Show starring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston premieres on Apple TV+ tonight. Witherspoon and Aniston play competitive, morning TV anchors for a company that's in the midst of a major MeToo scandal. But, to keep the show topical, writers made significant changes so that the pandemic would be part of the narrative.
When the coronavirus hit the U.S., the writing and production of The Morning Show's new season was well underway. The entire season had been "broken," as they say in Hollywood. Kerry Erhin, an executive producer and showrunner of the fictional TV series says, "It's a year of working in a writers' room, breaking down the stories scene by scene."
"If you simply have to rewrite the first two episodes and re-break a giant portion of your season midstream that's, from a production perspective, an earthquake," says Ellenberg. "And then the other thing we were managing is, can we actually make this thing safely?"
"I really resisted that for about a day because we had just, you know, broken an entire season," she says, recalling the dreaded moment. "And then after another day, like, it just made sense. It isn't a subject you could avoid, especially doing a show about people covering the news."
Fictional correspondent Daniel Henderson, played by Desean Terry, is the first to raise the pandemic in the newsroom. Terry says this was a case of life and art intersecting. The characters in the TV show faced the same level of uncertainty as the cast did in real life. He says, early in the pandemic, they didn't know exactly how to protect themselves.
This was the second time The Morning Show cast and crew had to rework episodes because of real world events. Originally inspired by Brian Stelter's 2013 book Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV, Apple TV's fictional series always intended to look at the on and off-screen relationships in the competitive world of morning TV news, including how women are treated. Season 1 episodes had been largely mapped out when the bombshell reporting on Harvey Weinstein led to take-downs of other media figures including NBC's morning anchor Matt Lauer. Michael Ellenberg says, while it wasn't a "wholesale rewrite," changes were made to put sexual misconduct into sharper focus.
While the pandemic is the main thrust of the new season, the storylines that explore social injustices continue. Kerry Ehrin says she always wanted "the second season to be about the kind of shifting tectonic plates under society where things were starting to change and people were trying to figure out who they were."
This marks the highest-profile acting gig to date and first foray into drama for writer-comedian Minhaj, best known for his Peabody-winning Netflix show Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, his standup special for the streamer, Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King, and his stint as a correspondent on The Daily Show.
The Morning Show, executive produced by and starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, and produced by Media Res, restarted production on its second season last month following a pandemic-related production hiatus.
The Morning Show explores the cutthroat world of morning news and the lives of the people who help America wake up in the morning. Told through the lens of two complicated women working to navigate the minefield of high-octane jobs while facing crises in both their personal and professional lives, the unapologetically candid drama looks at the power dynamics between women and men, and women and women, in the workplace.
The series is executive produced by Michael Ellenberg through Media Res, which also serves as the studio, along with Aniston and Kristin Hahn through Echo Films; Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter through Hello Sunshine; and Mimi Leder, who also directs several episodes. The series is developed by Kerry Ehrin, who serves as showrunner and is an executive producer. 041b061a72
