Apple leans on star power

Apple released a full trailer for its long-anticipated newsroom drama The Morning Show this week, delivering a good look at Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell in what could become the flagship series for its TV+ service.

The trailer opens with broadcaster Alex Levy (Aniston) leading her program with some unfortunate, all-too-familiar-sounding news. Mitch Kessler (Carell), her co-host and colleague of 15 years, has been torpedoed by sexual misconduct allegations and fired from the show. Watching her announcement live, Kessler angrily dents his TV with a fireplace iron. But the network is moving toward a larger shakeup now, declaring Levy past her “sell-by date.” Enter Bradley Jackson (Witherspoon), an intrepid field reporter positioned to usurp Levy’s throne.

Based on Brian Stelter’s 2013 book Top of the Morning, The Morning Show is primed to chart a juicy chess match of duelling media egos in a cable news environment urgent to remain fresh.

The two high-powered women at the show’s centre wage war, and an ensemble cast fills out the legion of producers and executives pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Billy Crudup’s Cory Ellison, one of those executives, delivers the trailer’s standout line: “Watching a beloved woman’s breakdown is timeless American entertainment.”

It didn’t take long for social media to get excited about the upcoming release. And a few Twitter users were quick to point out similarities between the trailer and scenes from The Office. One user realized that the song Goodbye Stranger by Supertramp, which plays throughout the trailer, was the musical inspiration for Goodbye, Toby — written by Carell’s character Michael Scott; the hashtag #Goodbyetoby soon trended nationwide.

A standout on the Apple TV+ roster, the show is due to come out in the fall.

The Washington Post