Time flies – it's been a couple of years now since I first dipped a toe into Apple TV+, and it didn't take long for me to decide that it was (and remains) the best streaming service available right now. Funnily enough, the very first show I watched on the platform was The Morning Show, which Apple had used as part of its big launch years beforehand.
It was then in the middle of its third season, and now, two years on, we're finally about to get a fourth run, as confirmed by some teaser images and a dramatic trailer that gives us an idea of the sort of adversarial media stories we're going to get. It's not exactly the most revealing, but we'll doubtless get more promotional material before the season starts on 17 September.
The show has long since established Reece Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston's two characters as the heart of the drama, with their sometimes aligned and sometimes very contrasting aims and principles butting up against each other all too frequently. The trailer shows them walking to work together once more, shadowed by the supporting cast making somewhat dramatic pronouncements.
Apple's official blurb for the season reveals that it'll feature another time-skip, moving us forward a couple of years to a place where the big merger from last season has been completed. The new UBA-NBN newsroom will be grappling with some pretty realistic real-world problems, from the sounds of it, including the ever-increasing spread of misinformation and issues like deepfakes.
Behind that, though, will be the personal drama that makes the show compelling – from people striving to be recognised for their good work, to those trying to figure out how to climb even higher up the career ladder. Expect scandals, some light (or heavy) blackmail and hopefully a glorious return for Billy Crudup, whose performances in the show have always been magnetic.
The Morning Show feels like it's probably the most traditional show Apple TV+ has in its slate right now, in many ways. That old-school structure (and dialogue) works in its favour, though, making it simply really compelling and reliable, and I'm looking forward to dipping back in – it'll make a nice break from all the top-class sci-fi Apple pumps out.
