‘The Morning Show’ gets a fifth and final season

Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon helped bolster fledging Apple TV with “The Morning Show” in 2019. The final season of the award-winning drama has been announced, bringing an era to a close.

Eddy Cue wanted “The Morning Show.” Long before the service was announced in March 2019, or debuted in November that year, Cue was looking for shows that would bring the streamer attention, and “The Morning Show” was being shopped around.

Created by Jay Carson and developed by Kerry Ehrin, the drama was being executive produced by its stars, Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon. “I thought the show was amazing,” Cue later told Variety, “but… I came down to the realization that we weren’t going to get it, because somebody would always offer more.”

“But I thought we were special, and so I asked for a meeting with [Aniston and Witherspoon],” he continued. He says he asked “whether they thought they were going to make one of the best shows ever in television,” and they said yes.

“So do I,” he told them. “That means you need to do it with us, and the reason you have to do it with us is because we don’t have any other shows. So we believe 100% in what you’re doing, and we’re going to launch our service on that.”

Launching Apple TV+

The first star on stage at the launch of Apple TV+, as it was originally known, was Steve Spielberg. Then the lights went down, there was a long pause, and the spotlight came up on Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston.

“Reese and I are so proud to be a part of this exciting launch with Apple, officially announcing our new project, ‘The Morning Show,’” said Aniston.

“So in ‘The Morning Show,’ said Witherspoon, “we pull back the curtain on the power dynamics between men and women in the high-stakes world of morning news shows.”

“It’s a real insider’s view into the lives of the people who help America wake up every day,” she continued before handing back to Aniston.

“And through the prism of those under-slept, over-adrenalized people behind and in front of the camera, we take an honest look at the complex relationships between women and men in the workplace, and we engage in the conversation people are a little too afraid to have unless they are behind closed doors.”

That’s “The Morning Show,” and that’s exactly where the show went over what we now know will be its eight-year run.

As with many Apple TV series, “The Morning Show” was given a two-season order right at the start. But it has not aired as consistently as later hits such as “Slow Horses,” which runs annually.

Instead, “The Morning Show” has aired only four seasons so far, with its fifth and final one now in production to air in 2027. It’s worked out as a new season every second September, and perhaps because of that, each run has been a critically-acclaimed event event.

The show didn’t ignore how comparatively slowly it was being released, either as the story moved on two years between seasons three and four. It’s not known yet when the final season’s storylines will pick up, but it is known that it will feature new characters played by Jeff Daniels, Jesse Williams, and more.

Those new faces will join the regulars including Aniston, Witherspoon, and Billy Crudup. Crudup is just one of the actors to have won awards for the series, but he holds the distinction of having won the very first Emmy that Apple TV ever received.

If the new season keeps to the existing format, it will bring the total number of episodes up to 50. It’s a small number compared to network TV shows of the past. Over the same time frame, for example, Aniston’s “Friends” cranked out 194 half-hour episodes.

But maybe this what has made “The Morning Show” so consistently strong. Seasons are released when they’re ready, more or less, instead of having to hit specific air dates.

The seasons are long enough, at 10 episodes each, to tell a meaty story. But they’re not so long as to need those tales being stretched out unnaturally.

Back when hour dramas ran for upwards of 22 episodes per season, there used to be a reluctant belief on the part of producers. One third of your season’s episodes could be great, they would say, one third might be okay, but try as you might, one third would be terrible.

So far “The Morning Show” has avoided that trap. Here’s looking forward to seeing if it can get to the finishing line as strongly as it has run so far.

Apple has not announced any details of the last season yet, but if it follows form, the season will run in September 2027. And we’ll have to wait until August 2027 to even see the first trailer.