Season 1 of The Morning Show was the good kind of TV stress. Like, phone-down, edge-of-couch, “did she really just say that on air?” kind of stress. It was about power and reckoning and the unglamorous fallout of ambition. And I’ve been chasing that high ever since.
Season 2 went full plate-spinning mode with covering COVID, cancel culture, climate anxiety, canceling cancel culture, and in trying to say everything, said very little. Season 3 was a tonal jigsaw puzzle that didn’t always fit together, but… I was entertained. It embraced the soap by stuffing in modern-day media panic, a shady billionaire, messy mergers, and a dozen moral crises, all scored to moody piano.
Now, two years after the UBA-NBN merger, Season 4 begins with something that’s been missing: direction. There’s a new network (UBN), a new dynamic, and finally, a sense that the writers know what kind of show they’re making again.
We’ll be updating this review with fresh takes and highlights every week as new episodes air, because if there’s one thing The Morning Show guarantees, it’s drama on a deadline.
Episode 1: My Roman Empire
The new network, UBN, is banking everything on its Olympics coverage and flashy new AI tools, but behind the scenes, trust is thin and nerves are fraying. Alex has stepped into a more executive role, Stella’s now CEO, and the show wastes no time throwing them both into the deep end. First with internal resistance to AI, then with an international defection plot that threatens to blow up the entire network.
The defection storyline, involving an Iranian teenage Olympian and her father, is as chaotic as it is watchable. It’s also the perfect reintroduction to Alex: composed on the surface, spiraling underneath, and once again walking the line between power and recklessness. Marion Cotillard is a strong addition as icy board member Celine Dumont, while Boyd Holbrook’s Brodie Hartman brings a much-needed dose of disruptive energy. Meanwhile, Bradley is barely present, still off the grid until a whistleblower message pulls her back into the game.
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This is the first time in a long time that The Morning Show feels like it knows exactly what kind of mess it wants to be. It’s not exactly subtle, but it never was. What it is, though, is entertaining: glossy, timely, and chaotic in all the right ways. If the rest of the season can keep this balance, The Morning Show might finally deliver the kind of season it’s been trying to make since Season 1.
