The Morning Show season 4: Everything you need to know (original) (raw)
The Morning Show season 3 spoilers follow.
A season finale of The Morning Show never fails to disappoint when it comes to delivering record-scratch-worthy drama. If we wondered how they could top the second season's culmination in the early, scary stages of the unfolding coronavirus pandemic, they managed to find higher terrain to tread on the great soapy TV Alps.
The third season wrapped up with not only a _Succession_-style company merger, but Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) deciding to turn herself in to the feds for her decision to delete her brother's involvement in the January 6 insurrection. Yes, if you thought that episode was a fever dream, that was something that actually happened during this season's ten-episode run.
Now that the third season of The Morning Show has come and gone, what can we expect next from our messy scions of daytime television as UBA enters a new era? Read on for all the details.
Apple TV+
The Morning Show season 3 potential release date: When will it air?
Praise Tim Cook and the deep pockets of the company he presides over, because we already know we're getting more of The Morning Show. Apple TV+ renewed its first flagship drama for a fourth run before the third season's episodes had even hit the streaming platform.
However, the season-four announcement came before the industry strikes in summer 2023, and the SAG-AFTRA industrial action was still ongoing while the third season was airing.
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Both the actors and writers' strikes have now come to an end, with fair deals being achieved, but they will have likely delayed production on the next season.
Apple TV+
Progress is now being made, though, with current showrunner Charlotte Stoudt telling Variety in February that writing for season four was under way.
However, in April, she revealed that the next batch of episodes won't begin streaming on Apple TV+ until after this year's US presidential election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump (via ET Online), which is scheduled to take place on November 5.
According to Stoudt, this is because the writers are trying to approach the fourth season in an "interesting way without being predictive".
With this in mind, we’ll likely need to wait until at least early 2025 for season four, but watch this space. The Morning Show hive will probably be used to facing long waits in-between each season by now anyway, since the Apple TV+ show has taken a year break between each batch of episodes thus far.
The Morning Show season 3 cast: Who's in it?
The Morning Show's two A-list stars and executive producers Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon will be returning to the UBA fold for another season to fight the good fight from a live TV studio.
They could likely be joined by the following main cast members:
- Billy Crudup (Cory Ellison)
- Julianna Margulies (Laura Peterson)
- Greta Lee (Stella Bak)
- Mark Duplass (Charlie Black, aka Chip)
- Nestor Carbonell (Yanko Flores)
- Karen Pittman (Mia Jordan)
Apple TV+
Recurring cast members who could also potentially return include Holland Taylor as UBA chair Cybil Richards and Stephen Fry as "My dad was a binman" Leonard Cromwell.
However, there are certain cast members the show has already hinted we might see less of next season. Joe Tippett as Bradley's MAGA-touting brother Hal is now likely on his way behind bars after turning himself in, so unless Bradley goes to visit him, he might just quietly disappear.
Similarly, Jon Hamm's tech billionaire Paul Marks might not factor quite so prominently after he unveiled himself _Scooby Doo_-style as the villain of the piece (shock, horror, the Elon Musk stand-in was the baddie).
The criminally underused Nicole Beharie may also not be back, since the season finale hinted her character Christina would be leaving UBA for greener pastures over at ESPN. Godspeed Christina, you deserve better than this anyway.
Beyond that, your guess is as good as ours for now. Maybe we could even be treated to a flashback-style return for Steve Carell's Mitch Kessler.
As ever on The Morning Show, expect the unexpected.
The Morning Show season 3 plot: What will happen?
The third season of The Morning Show went out with a sonic boom-level bang. Alex (Aniston) dramatically turned on her newfound flame Paul (Hamm) in the UBA board meeting, proposing a last-minute merger with Laura Peterson's home network of NBN over his hostile takeover.
Apple TV+
With Paul thrown under the bus where him and his surveillance tactics belong, Alex has successfully ushered in a new era for UBA and its ailing streaming platform UBA+.
Going into a season four with a network merger presents plenty of foreseeable challenges for our cast of characters. The diva-prone likes of Laura and Alex will be forced to work with each other, likely with NBN's other star TV host of Mindy Kaling's rarely seen Audra.
Away from the UBA/NBN of it all, the big question hanging over a fourth season is how Witherspoon's Bradley will factor after she turned herself in to the FBI. Could she face jail time? Will her reputation as a reporter be able to recover after that footage tampering?
Perhaps The Morning Show will employ one of its preferred ploys of a time jump, rushing on to when the whole January 6 thing has blown over. This seems likely, as showrunner Stoudt confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter in November.
"I think you probably have to have some kind of time jump," she said, "because it takes so long to write and shoot and post the show. You don't want to get too far behind in real time, in terms of the era we're playing and when people are watching it.
Apple TV+
"But I think those time jumps, actually, are great. Because they allow for really surprising reveals at the top of the season. It's a little bit of: 'How did they get there? Wait, he's doing what? Those two are together?!' I think just on a sheer deliciousness of story, you can have a lot of fun with this big cast."
In the same interview, Stoudt revealed that even thought Alex and Bradley were fairly separate throughout season three, she is keen to keep their friendship front and centre.
She said: "To me, the core of the show is [Alex and Bradley's] dynamic and how they change each other. And I think that always has to be there, absolutely. So we'll find a way. They'll be in the same room, somehow!"
As for the pressing issues that the show might cover in the next instalment, Witherspoon has her own ideas, as she explained in an interview with Variety in December.
She suggested: "I think it would be great to do something with AI and the veracity of news when things can be so easily manufactured. It's really a strange time for journalism, and it just continues to evolve."
Meanwhile, fellow exec producer Mimi Leder has teased a change in tone.
"What I would say is, last season was about what is the truth, and this could be about, who do you trust?" she said at PaleyFest in April.
Of course, we'll know more about who will be back and what might unfold once production officially gets going. Watch this space.
The Morning Show seasons 1-3 are now streaming worldwide on Apple TV+.
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Previously Deputy TV Editor at Digital Spy and, before that, a TV Reporter at The Mirror, Rebecca can now be found crafting expert analysis of the TV landscape, when she's not talking on the BBC or Times Radio about everything from the latest season of Bridgerton or The White Lotus to whatever chaos is unfolding in the various Love Island villas. When she's not bingeing a boxset, in-the-wild sightings of Rebecca have included stints on the National TV Awards and BAFTAs red carpets, and post-match video explainers of the reality TV we're all watching.