Wake Up to THE MORNING SHOW

Article first published as THE MORNING SHOW: TV REVIEW at Seat42F.

WARNING: This review contains spoilers for the first three episodes.

One of Apple TV+’s new dramas is THE MORNING SHOW. Set at a Good Morning America type of series, the program follows anchors past and present as they navigate through the current political climate and their own ambitions. Featuring an all-star cast, this is probably the best program I’ve seen from the brand-new streaming service so far.

As the pilot begins, sexual harassment charges go public against veteran anchor Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell, The Office). The network reacts quickly, firing him. Producer Chip Black (Mark Duplass, Togetherness) is thrown because he was preparing to let go Mitch’s on-air partner, Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston, Friends), go for being past her prime (in talent, not age). All this drama excites the new head of news for the network, Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup, Watchmen), and other anchors like Yanko (Nestor Carbonell, Bates Motel), Daniel (Desean Terry), and Alison (Janina Gavankar, The League) want the empty seat. But it’s little known, passionate, online sensation Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon, Big Little Lies) that swoops in and takes the spot.

The plot of THE MORNING SHOW is beyond juicy. It has the #MeToo controversy that is still so relevant, but also all manner of scheming and backstabbing. While none of the characters come off as unlikeable, there is plenty of insecurity and ambition. Besides those mentioned above, behind-the-scenes staff Hannah (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Touch) and Mia (Karen Pittman, Luke Cage) seem like key players, as does Alex’s secretly estranged husband, Jason (Jack Davenport, Smash). So there’s no shortage of participants, and not all of their motivations are immediately clear.

Add to all the individual concerns, there’s the business perspective of a network and a popular, but struggling, series that that must be taken into consideration. The Morning Show is losing ground to competitor Audra (Mindy Kaling, The Mindy Project) and looking to shake things up; Cory himself is a new approach. So even before Mitch blows everything up, there’s tension. But with this latest development, no easy way out is apparent, leaving the cast to fight amongst one another.

What’s more, there are actual questions of journalism and responsibility layered in. Bradley is temperamental, to be sure, but there’s a level of genuineness and naivety to her role. She believes in the profession and the mission, and doesn’t like being used as a pawn, which she’s smart enough to pick up on immediately. Will she bring back what The Morning Show needs to rise again, or will it chew her up and force her to be something she isn’t? And which needs to happen for the show to succeed? This isn’t The Newsroom, after all, and drama can equal ratings.

Perhaps the toughest part for some to swallow is the effort made to humanize Mitch. It’s very easy to write him off as soon as the rumors start, and the all-too-ripped-from-the-headlines button under his desk does him no favors. But then, in the third installment, Mitch is talking to his high-profile friend (Martin Short, Saturday Night Live) about snap judgments and nuance, and there’s a moment where some may start to feel sorry for Mitch. Not because his behavior was excusable (it isn’t), but because he truly doesn’t know why he’s been taken down, or how what he did was wrong. Should inappropriate consensual relationships be a death knell for a career? As a straight, white man, I refuse to weigh in on that and I certainly understand how some may have no sympathy for him, but I’m fascinated by the questions raised. What is an appropriate punishment for the details of his case?

Reviews for THE MORNING SHOW have been mixed, but I like it. It’s smart, it’s quick, and it makes you think about things we should all be considering more carefully than we usually do. Catch it now on Apple TV+.

UnderSEE

Article first published as SEE: TV REVIEW on Seat42F.

Part of Apple TV+’s slate of programming, SEE is a post-apocalyptic drama about tribes of blind people warring over mystical things, such as a pair of twin babies who can see. Plenty of battles and lots of animals skins and furs, it’s a show that appears to take place hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago, while actually having a slight futuristic sci-fi aspect to its fantasy.

Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones, Aquaman) capably stars as Baba Voss, leader of a tribe on a hill. Before the series begins, a mysterious woman, Maghra (Hera Hilmar, Da Vinci’s Demons), comes among them and is taken in by Baba, under his personal protection. But when she gives birth to a pair of babies, one male, one female, whom nurse Paris (Alfre Woodard, Luke Cage) says are special, an army of witchfinders threatens the people. Baba and his tribe must flee, and their escape route is supplied by the infants’ unseen true father.

The premise involves disease wiping out most life on Earth and the survivors being left universally blind. SEE is set hundreds of years after these events, but for some reason, the individuals in it live like historical tribal people. Why? Would it not make much more sense than technology was clung to, which would provide assistance for an unseeing people? Would that not be a more reasonable future after such a disaster? And even if technology could not be salvaged, why are most people far away from the remnants of what was? It’s quite late in the pilot before we see any ruins. Would so many people be willing to just walk away? And where are the new trappings of life that would be specific to a totally blind society?

Worse are the battles that are a key part of SEE. Some elements of different fighting are shown for the blind people, with special listeners and sensors. But there are melees typical of modern film, where there is much close hand-to-hand fighting. In such a situation, it would be nearly impossible to tell who is friend and who is foe without some major difference between the peoples. This could be in clothing materials or hair styles or something, but none is obviously present. There’s blind swinging and stabbing, and even some distance throwing of weapons that somehow strike their targets. Some care is given to adjust to the world in the premise, but not nearly enough. The battles don’t feel realistic, unfortunate as they seem to be key to the genre.

Character development is lacking, too. Most of the people are forgettable, blending together. Several warriors stand by Baba when the council of his people threaten to turn against them, but it’s not easy to differentiate between them. The acting is being sold as much as one can, but I don’t think the performers are given much to work with.

It’s not much of a mystery to me why Woodard and Momoa are the only very recognizable faces among these masses. I don’t know who would want to sign on to a half-baked fantasy series so soon after Game of Thrones. Horrible ending aside, GoT left a lot to live up to, and it would be foolish to try to follow it without a solid plan. SEE does not provide such an example. It’s closer to Vikings, which was somewhat good, but wasn’t under the pressure to stand out that this is. It’s hard to see it running very many seasons, even on a brand-new network that is motivated for its earliest shows to succeed.

SEE is not without any redeeming qualities. Production design is interesting, and there are some ideas worth exploring. It just doesn’t do enough to begin strong, and thus is unlikely to be more than a blip in television history, over soon and quickly forgotten.

SEE is currently running on Apple TV+.

Discover LIMETOWN

Article first published as LIMETOWN: TV REVIEW on Seat42F.

I discovered the scripted podcast LIMETOWN shortly after it premiered. I devoured both seasons (despite the long break in between) of the creepy drama about a town of more than 300 people that went missing without a trace, and the investigator with a personal connection seeking to expose the truth. I wasn’t alone, with the feed rising to number one on the charts about two months after its premiere. Now, that podcast is a live action television show, available exclusively on Facebook.

I get it, a show on Facebook, it sounds like a joke. Or some cheap web series of the kind that were popular about ten years ago. LIMETOWN isn’t that. It’s a well-crafted, slow-burn suspense tale with a decent budget and professional presentation. The episodes are half an hour long, and it’s very easy to believe you’re watching it on a cable or streaming service, rather than on social media.

While the actors in the original audio drama were mostly unknowns, the show has recognizable faces. Jessica Biel (The Sinner) stars as Lia Haddock, the journalist from American Public Radio, an NPR-like radio network, that digs into the case. If you haven’t seen Biel’s recent work and still dismiss her as ‘that girl from Seventh Heaven,’ I recommend you check out some of her credits. She’s really fantastic, and this role is no exception, playing a woman on the very edge of insanity and obsession.

Lia has haunting memories of her younger self (Vera Frederickson) interacting with ‘Uncle Emile’ (Stanley Tucci, Spotlight). Emile worked on the Limetown project alongside Dr. Oskar Totem (Alessandro Juliani, the newer Battlestar Galactica) and dozens of other scientists. The town included spouses, children, support staff, even pigs. But they all disappeared during a three-day period, with emergency personnel blocked from entering by private security, and then only Totem’s body found. Where did they go? Are they still alive?

LIMETOWN only really has one lead in Lia, although we sometimes see her boss, Gina (Sherri Saum, The Fosters), and assigned co-worker, Mark (Omar Elba, Berlin, I Love You), as she tracks down Lenore (Janet Kidder, Arrow) and other people hiding in the shadows. I get why the television series felt the need to expand the cast, but I’m glad it didn’t build up those roles too much to distract from the main plot. Although giving Lia a girlfriend (Kandyse McClure, also Battlestar Galactica) does help round out who the protagonist used to be before completely disappearing in her work, which she’s on the verge of when we meet her.

I won’t spoil how season one of the podcast concludes, which I assume will be similar for the show, despite being early in its run, given how faithful the story seems to play out so far. Though, there were only six episodes of that, while there are more for the visual medium, so I expect some more expansion, at the very least. All I will say is Lia’s story is tragic, and I’m really looking forward to seeing if the show follows the second season of the podcast into a somewhat new direction, or doubles down on the journey already being followed.

Without knowing how it ends, though, I am very satisfied with what’s been done so far. The first few episodes are gripping and intense, with a rich tapestry that is more (necessarily) complex than the original while maintaining its spirit. It’s graphic, but not too gory, and scary without relying on the jumps. On its own, it’s fantastic. As an adaptation, it succeeds. This is a show I would want to watch even if I wasn’t already totally engrossed in the story.

Watch LIMETOWN on Facebook, with two new episodes dropping every week, with six already out and another four to come.

LIVING WITH YOURSELF Review

Article first published as TV Review: LIVING WITH YOURSELF on Seat42F.

Looking at the poster of Netflix’s new series LIVING WITH YOURSELF, you might think you know what the show is. After all, Paul Rudd (Ant-Man) has made plenty of comedies, and many of us know what those are. They’re familiar and amusing, but not usually ground-breaking or particularly memorable. I’m not picking on Rudd here, and I enjoy the genre he works in, but there’s a certain predictability to a lot of that resume. Toss in the clone aspect, and it seems like it’ll contain even fewer surprises, with the duplicate jokes having been done on numerous occasions in the past.

If that first paragraph describes your initial thought, as it did mine, you could not be more wrong. LIVING WITH YOURSELF is a very complex and rich tapestry of a world and story, with characters who go through complicated issues and question their identities. It’s funny, sometimes, but that’s beside the point, as it is so much more than that. Like The Good Place, it makes you think about what it means to be a good person, and this one also gets into motivation, the paths not taken, how experience shapes us, the idea of a soul, being one’s best self, and a lot more.

Rudd is excellent as Miles Elliot, maybe the best role in his career thus far. Or rather, roles, as he plays two versions of Elliot. One has been worn out by some tough things in life, frustrated with his job, and fighting with his wife. The other has the exact same memories, but a fresh body unencumbered by aches, pain, and stress, giving him a totally different viewpoint. He’s the idyllic Miles, the person Miles could be if he started over with a clean slate. It’s interesting just how much an attitude makes a different, but it requires a huge thing like being cloned in order to gain that new attitude. It’s a testament to Rudd just how different these two parts seem despite being essentially the same individual.

The cloning process itself opens up all sorts of questions. The operation is secret and shady, and at least some clients don’t realize the operation involves killing the original human after the copy is made. In Miles’ case, an error causes the death not to stick, and thus the problems are born. These two Miles share one car, one job, one social security number, which isn’t a practical way to live. And they both want that one life. Not to mention, the guys that run the cloning experiment (James Seol and Successions’s Rob Yang) have their own stuff going on.

In early episodes, Miles’ wife, Kate (Aisling Bea, The Fall), seems like the one glaring problem with the show. Not because of anything Bea is doing (or not doing), but because she isn’t developed at all, playing a pretty straight-forward, one-note spouse, the type present in so many shows and films. But by the fifth half hour, which centers on Kate, LIVING WITH YOURSELF proves the final piece of its worthiness by giving Bea a showcase to shine. As soon as her part of the story is filled in, the plot gets even better, really fleshing out the world in a needed way. We quickly care as much about her life as we do Miles, and that makes things so much more satisfying.

Other characters, including Miles’ co-worker Dan (Desmin Borges, You’re the Worst) and sister Maia (Alia Shawkat, Arrested Development) add little bits that will surely pay off, and there is a fair amount of mystery baked in, too. It’s a delightful, engaging mess of a world, one that feels very lived in.

I cannot recommend LIVING WITH YOURSELF enough. This show is excellent, stand-out in a landscape filled with great programming, and has something new to say. Season one is streaming on Netflix now, so go check it out.