What if a Silicon Valley tycoon bought one of America’s biggest news channels? What if the star journalist of this same channel allowed herself to be manipulated by this new kind of predator… Season 3 of The Morning Show, created by Kerry Ehrin and broadcast from this Wednesday on Apple TV+, changes the subject after having dissected and put an end to the MeToo chapter. It is still a question of predation, but in another register.
Remember, season 1 and 2 recounted the earthquake caused by revelations of sexual assault in The Morning Show, the ultra-popular morning show of the UBA television channel. Star presenter Mitch Kessler, played by Steve Carell, accused of harassment and sexual assault, sees his career collapse overnight. The series relentlessly analyzed male domination in a very white and testosterone-driven media world. Season 2 marked the time for a man on the ground to seek redemption against the backdrop of confinement in Italy. What can we say after having explored for two seasons the power relations in the world of television and showing the difficulties for a woman to maneuver her career?
The dangers of big tech
For its third season, The Morning Show drops MeToo to study the dangers that tech giants represent for information and democracy. If the first episodes leave a bad taste of déjà vu – they are frankly reminiscent The Newsroom by Aaron Sorkin-, the series regains the momentum of its beginnings at the end of the season. And returns to his favorite subject: the fall of the toxic male. Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup), CEO of UBA, seeks to economically secure his chain and goes in search of a buyer who meets his financial needs. He sets his sights on a certain Paul Marks, played by Jon Hamm (the magnetic Don Draper in Mad Men), which has everything of a fictional replica of Elon Musk, at the head of Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and more recently X (formerly Twitter).
The character of Paul Marks offers a fascinating insight into the dangers of a marriage between new technologies and the media. Founder of a start-up that designs rockets, he invites Cory Ellison and Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) for a little trip into space. A weightless escapade reminiscent of the flight of Jeff Bezos, boss of Amazon, in his New Shepard propeller. Multi-billionaire business leader, workaholic, Paul Marks is a shark with sharp teeth. He does not hesitate to lay off hundreds of employees or to consider breaking up a company like UBA to make as much profit as possible. Manipulator, strategist, he multiplies NDAs (confidentiality agreements) to silence his colleagues. And if the situation requires it, he will not shy away from any means of pressure to cover up compromising matters. Clearly, he has everything to please.
The fall of the toxic male
As charming with Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) as cruel with Bradley Jackson, all means are good to achieve his ends: take control of UBA and stop the investigations into his person. Faced with this archetype of a tech giant, we cannot help but make the link with Elon Musk, who was quick to give in to the sirens of censorship after buying Twitter. What would happen if one of these tech “monsters” took over a media outlet? The Morning Show takes the time to study this hypothesis and its consequences for press freedom. Can quality information be ensured in a work environment that abuses terror management? Above all, can we continue our journalistic mission with an editorial staff that has lost a large part of its staff?
In the footsteps of Succession by Jesse Armstrong who envisaged, in season 4, the takeover of Waystar RoyCo, a global media and entertainment conglomerate, by a Swedish streaming magnate, the AppleTV + series sheds harsh light on the nuisance capacities of these behemoths with infinite resources. The Morning Show must have scent even if reality precedes it a little. The spectacular arrival of new generations of so-called generative artificial intelligence like GPT-4 at the end of 2022 has caused a wave of panic in the world of work, raising fears of the replacement of man by machine. The media have not escaped this. The New York Times revealed last June that Google was testing Genesis, an AI tool capable of writing articles and synthesizing information. A lead for season 4?