Review: The Morning Show captures the mood expertly in season 4
James Cox
The Morning Show hits the mark again with its fourth season, as Jennifer Aniston's Alex Levy and Reese Witherspoon's Bradley Jackson are newsmakers as well as journalists.
The star quality of Aniston and Witherspoon drives The Morning Show once again, but there are also some excellent additions to the cast.
Chief amongst them is Marion Cotillard as Celine Dumont, the latest president of the board of UBN (United Broadcasting Network).
Jeremy Irons is another fine addition to the stellar cast, playing Alex's father William Jackson, a smug law professor.
Boyd Holbrook plays Bro Hartman, a Joe Rogan-type podcaster who has joined the UBN group, much to the distaste of Alex, who forms an uneasy relationship with him.
Then there's Charlie 'Chip' Black (Mark Duplass), Alex's former assistant and now a successful journalist in his own right, and Mia Jordan (Karen Pittman), an executive who is impatiently rising up in the world.
Jon Hamm also returns as Paul Marks, the meddling billionaire who is far more likeable than Elon Musk.
However, it's Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) who emerges as a character just as substantial as Alex and Bradley.
The former UBN boss is now in the movie business, but he soon returns from Hollywood to the cutthroat business of American network TV.
Season four picks up in 2024, two years after Bradley turned herself into the FBI for covering up her brother’s role in the January 6th US Capitol riot.
The Morning Show once again blends real-world news with fictional events with a good balance. For example, Alex is working hard to nail down an interview with then-president Joe Biden ahead of the 2024 election.
Meanwhile, Bro Hartman has aspirations to move from the far-right rage bait sphere to become a congressman.
In the fictional sense, Alex is trying to secure asylum for an Iranian athlete, while Bradley (now returned to New York and UBN) teams up with Chip into an investigation into an environmental cover-up.
UBN chief executive Stella Bok (Greta Lee) is pushing the use of AI, an issue all too real for journalists everywhere. After spending millions, a programme to make AI avatars of anchors ahead of the 2024 Olympics still isn't working, and the AI has disastrous consequences.
Meanwhile, the uneasy relationship between podcasts and news, what constitutes disinformation and real stories, is prominent with Hartman's podcast.
The 10 episodes make for brilliant viewing, and will leave fans of the season wanting more.
The series was renewed for a fifth season on September 16th, 2025, ahead of the premiere of the fourth season.
You can watch all four seasons of The Morning Show on Apple TV+
