Apple TV+’s flagship drama The Morning Present returns right now for an additional season of broadcast information back-stabbing after a very disastrous second season. The present provides a brand new character — a tech exec performed by Mad Males star Jon Hamm — to the poisonous combine this time round.

However can the showrunners proper The Morning Present’s course? And, maybe extra importantly, does it matter? The present, a couple of information community and its star executives and anchors, finds itself coping with up to date politics a day late and a greenback brief.

The Morning Present season 3 opener

Season 3, episodes 1 and a couple of: As The Morning Present’s third season begins, the 12 months is 2022 and COVID-19 has kind of abated as a disaster in America (not for lack of loss of life toll). And within the years for the reason that present inside a present has been capturing, upstart anchor Bradley Jackson (performed by Reese Witherspoon) has grow to be the host of the nightly information at UBA — which is now known as UBA+.

She’s being dealt with by the top of the community’s information division, Stella Bak (Greta Lee), and Bradley hates it. As all the time, she desires to make a distinction, however seems like she’s flailing. She will be able to’t maintain a relationship alive. And a run-in with outdated girlfriend Laura Peterson (Juliana Margulies) simply reminds her of that unhappy truth.

Alex desires to make an influence transfer

In the meantime, veteran anchor Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) has grow to be a beloved sensation throughout, ever since her well-known COVID broadcast, produced by her long-suffering handler Chip (Mark Duplass). Now Alex has been given her personal present, and he or she’s mainly grow to be the second coming of Oprah.

Nonetheless, she desires extra — and he or she lets Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) realize it. So, to boost her profile, she’s agreed to go up with Cory in a rocket, courtesy of tech big Paul Marks (Jon Hamm), to be lined by Morning Present host Yanko Flores (Nestor Carbonell).

Cory desires to promote UBA to Marks and save his flagging numbers on the helm. And that’s unhealthy information for Alex, who hoped to get a seat on the board at UBA and have a say within the firm’s future. If Cory will get his manner and Paul takes over, she’ll have even much less management than she does now.

Nonetheless, all of that falls into jeopardy when a cyberattack hits UBA. The hack exposes inside information in regards to the firm and its a whole bunch of staff, making a huge mess on the web.

What’s fallacious with The Morning Present?

The issues with The Morning Present, which I’ve documented extensively right here at Cult of Mac, haven’t been mitigated by the introduction of the nice Jon Hamm to the forged. If something, his character is a perplexing new wrinkle in an already care-worn swimsuit.

Paul Marks is supposed to be a mixture of Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, together with his black wardrobe, delinquent demeanor and curiosity in shopping for a media firm. After which there’s his rocket flight within the season opener, which fuels one of many silliest cliffhangers I’ve ever seen on TV.

Why does the Morning Present need to paint a billionaire plutocrat as a suave wheeler-dealer with Hamm’s beauty? No clue. It’s a bizarre selection in a present made up of little else. Nonetheless, it’s extraordinarily humorous that with a purpose to stroll backward from “martyring a intercourse pest,” the present went with, “What if Elon Musk was sizzling and sensible?”

Nonetheless, regardless of the remainder of The Morning Present’s faults, it’s good to spend time with Hamm. At the least the actor makes huge, demonstrative character decisions that free him from the gang of nervous wrecks who in any other case anchor the drama.

Good actors caught with unhealthy scripts

In season three, Billy Crudup nonetheless does his greatest to make Cory right into a human being and largely succeeds. Sadly, they’ve given the actor much less to work with within the first two episodes than he often will get.

Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon are nonetheless tasked with being sullen but manic. Their characters deal with each problem because the tipping level of a breakdown. That should put on skinny shortly when that’s the solely resolution the writers give you on your character.

For instance, when Aniston finds out Chip and her assistant are in a relationship, she throws her again in opposition to the door of her condominium, screams and nearly cries. Then, 30 seconds later, she’s congratulating them and providing to take them to dinner.

Do broadcast information stars actually stay like this?

It’s attainable high-profile tv personalities are actually like this (I met Maria Menounos as soon as, although, and he or she appeared fairly calm). However while you’re all the time at 11, there’s nowhere else to go. The Morning Present went to house after which misplaced all its information to a cyberterrorist, and it nonetheless doesn’t really feel just like the enterprise of operating a TV studio is as vital because the present would have us imagine.

All this sound and fury and what does it signify? In the event you guessed “nothing,” congratulations. Now change the channel. That’s what I’m doing.

★☆☆☆☆

Watch The Morning Present on Apple TV+

New episodes of The Morning Present season three arrive Wednesdays on Apple TV+.

Rated: TV-MA

Watch on: Apple TV+

Scout Tafoya is a movie and TV critic, director and creator of the long-running video essay sequence The Unloved for RogerEbert.com. He has written for The Village Voice, Movie Remark, The Los Angeles Evaluate of Books and Nylon Journal. He’s the creator of Cinemaphagy: On the Psychedelic Classical Type of Tobe Hooper and However God Made Him A Poet: Watching John Ford within the twenty first Century, the director of 25 characteristic movies, and the director and editor of greater than 300 video essays, which could be discovered at Patreon.com/honorszombie.