The Morning Show: Seasons 1 & 2 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.5

The Morning Show: Seasons 1 & 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Justin Dekker April 1, 2026

Apple TV+'s hit series 'The Morning Show: Seasons 1 & 2' arrives on Bu-ray disc courtesy of Fifth Season. The series, which dramatizes significant events of our recent past as lived and seen through the lens of a fictitious national morning program stars Jennifer Aniston ('Horrible Bosses'), Reese Witherspoon ('Legally Blonde'), and Steve Carell ('The Office'). All twenty (20) episodes which comprise the first two seasons are included in this eight-disc set. A slipcover is included, but a Digital Code is not.

Jennifer Aniston stars as Alex Levy, a long-time co-anchor of a national morning show. Flagging ratings and the ouster of her on-air partner, Mitch Kessler (Carrell), has Alex nervous for her future as the network's executives plot, scheme, and craft a vision to return to the program to its former glory. The addition of the unpolished Bradley Jackson (Witherspoon) to the show's team seems to offer as many reasons for hope as for concern, and as the series navigates some of the bigger national and global events of the recent past, it's clear that the morning news won't be same.

When I first started seeing the publicity material around this series I quickly keyed on the cast list. With Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carell as the talent receiving top-billing, my initial assumption was that this would likely be a comedy lampooning the institution of morning television, those who create it, and likely to some extent, those who religiously view it. Something light, fluffy, and occasionally biting and/or profane (in the vein of Veep ) is what I was expecting. Instead, a more serious drama with sporadic comedic moments and social commentary is what was on-tap instead. And the series is all the better for it.

While I'd had occasion to see two the three leads, Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, in a mix of more serious dramatic roles in addition to straight-forward comedies, the same was not true for my exposure to Steve Carrell. Everything I had seen him in, from The Office, to 40-Year-Old Virgin to the Despicable Me franchise, had served to showcase his comedic talents along with his willingness to look foolish in pursuit of a laugh. It's a skill set that has served him well. For even in his characters' worst moments, where his words or deeds induce uncomfortable squirms as a result of their "cringeyness" or utter cluelessness, somehow he is consistently able to maintain the inherent likeability and charm of his characters. No small feat. Season 1 finds his Mitch Kessler on the outs. Rampant allegations of sexual misconduct result in him being persona non grata at the news desk of the show made him a beloved national star. the year is 2019, the #MeToo movement is in full swing, and Kessler, a character that seems derived from and begs comparison to disgraced NBC morning show anchor Matt Lauer, has just become its poster boy.

Throughout the first season, Carrell would process through a variety of emotions, ranging from petulance, disbelief, anger, and depression as the impact of the allegations work their way through both his personal and professional lives. Unable to truly understand the ugly truth of what he'd done, he largely sees himself as a victim. Aniston's Levy, struggles with the allegations against him as well. As she works to keep it together as an aging female in a youth-obsessed industry, her own feelings about the allegations and their resultant impacts serve to illustrate Alex's character traits and her resilience. Her disbelief is understandable as she sells the storyline that this wasn't the Mitch she knew. Her anger at Mitch is realistic as the dissolution of their working relationship has clear implications for her own career and earning potential. And her overall image is somewhat fractured due to an incongruity between her on- and off-air personas.

Witherspoon's Bradley Jackson functions as an "everyman". An outsider in the world of major network broadcast television, her emotions are raw instead of polished, and her opinions and beliefs are grounded in her life experience rather than being sanitized by focus groups and a well-oiled PR machine. Her presence allows for departmental politics, management direction, and industry culture to be laid out in a manner that makes these elements more understandable and digestible to viewers who exist outside of this world. As Bradley is molded and learns, we learn , too, and we understand the difficulty of her wish to reshape the program into something more real, honest, and meaningful.

Season 2 continues to grapple with the fallout of the first season's major story arc, but would also turn its sights to a different topic/event that had a much more global impact in early 2020 - the COVID pandemic. Members of UBA's "The Morning Show" team would find themselves stranded abroad as the outbreak commences and travelers were not allowed to return home. One of the team would find themselves infected with the virus, wrestling with the uncertainty and fear that that plagued the infected in the first stages of the pandemic when scientists did not yet have a clear view on how the virus was spread, the course of the illness, and the best course of treatment. Using the tools at their disposal, that personal story was brought to their viewing public, capturing ratings and demystifying the illness at the same time. The brief arial shots of the deserted New York City streets are a particularly haunting reminder of the impact of shutdown that characterized those early days. The season would also balance more personal stories, office politics and ambitions, and other melodramatic story elements into the mix.

The supporting cast, consisting of Mark Duplass (Safety Not Guaranteed), Shari Belafonte (Sistas), Karen Pittman (Luke Cage), and Billy Crudup (Watchmen), is excellent. Crudup's disruptive UBA executive Cory Ellison is particularly engaging, providing a manic level of energy as he works to re-energize the network's flagship morning program and navigate the network through the current crisis and into the future. For as much positional power as he wields, his character also serves to shine a light on the sometimes massive and occasionally fragile egos of those who are broadcast into the homes of millions of Americans on a daily basis.

To the series' credit, for as politically-charged as the two broader issues at the center of the story arcs of the first two seasons could sometimes be, The Morning Show does an admirable job of largely keeping politics out of the discussion. The first season initially focuses on one woman's experience, the anchors' work to bring her story to the viewing public, and the minefield they, their producers, and their teams are forced to navigate in order to do so. Eventually, though, the full scope and nature of the situation would be discovered, as well as the actions of those who enabled him. Rather than passing judgement on Mitch Kessler, the series allows Carrell an opportunity to provide a very human reaction to the allegations leveled against him, as flawed and self-destructive as it may be. The same holds true for second season's focus on COVID, where shots of deserted streets, fears over a positive diagnosis, and a general uncertainty over what was to come next is presented in a way that rings to true. And given the fact that we are somewhat removed from the eruption of those events, the series thoughtfully provides viewers an opportunity to reexamine them with the enhanced perspective that the passage of time allows, resulting in a deeper layer to The Morning Show.

Episode Guide

Season One: Disc One

• In the Dark Night of the Soul it's Always 3:30 in the Morning

• A Seat at the Table

• Chaos is the New Cocaine

Season One: Disc Two

• That Woman

• No One's Gonna Harm You, Not While I'm Around

• The Pendulum Swings

Season One: Disc Three

• Open Waters

• Lonely at the Top

Season One: Disc Four

• Play the Queen

• The Interview

Season Two: Disc One

• My Least Favorite Year

• It's Like the Flu

• Laura

Season Two: Disc Two

• Kill the Fatted Calf

• Ghosts

• A Private Person

Season Two: Disc Three

• LaAmara Vita

• Confirmations

Season Two: Disc Four

• Testimony

• Fever

The Morning Show: Seasons 1 & 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Morning Show's MPEG-4 AVC-encoded image looks quite good in motion. Fine detail is typically impressively high. Facial particulars of the cast are consistently open for inspection. Every fine line and wrinkle is visible on the faces of the cast, every eye brow and bit of stubble is discernable, as are make-up details applied to the cast before they go on-air. Nocturnal arial shots of New York city are dazzlingly crisp. Environmental details are also easy to appreciate, such the gravel lot and signs at the protest that introduces the viewing audience to Bradley Jackson, the various knobs, dials, and keyboards in the control room, and the multitude of asphalt, brick, and other materials that comprise the buildings on the city's streets, present with great tactile realism. Alex's orange paisley dressing gown is pleasingly silky, sweaters possess a chunky and fuzzy knit, and leathers have an authentic gloss. Colors are richly saturated, with the blues and yellows that dominate studio set where Alex and many of the cast spend much of their time popping nicely. Skin tones are healthy and realistic throughout. Blacks can be satisfactorily deep and while they do enhance the image's depth and dimensionality, they can absorb detail making it difficult to observe character or set details. But on the whole, it's a very pleasing transfer.

The Morning Show: Seasons 1 & 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is a solid companion for the the contemporary events depicted in the series. As a drama, much of what it needs to handle is dialogue, and it does this quite well. Voices are typically front and center-focused and are understandable in even the most heated or quiet moments, and are presented without defect or issue. Moments of immersion appear routinely and can be quite impressive, such as the rainstorm Alex walks through as she leaves Mitch's house at the end of the first episode, street scenes that are populated with sirens, traffic, and voices of passersby, and the coal mine protest, where the viewer is surrounded by chaotic, shouting voices. Music is periodically and tastefully pushed to the forefront and is allowed to dominate; both recorded soundtrack elements and the lounge version of Radiohead's "Creep" performed in the bar at the Archer Hotel where Ellison and Jackson meet to discuss her future. Here the instrumentation benefits from the track's precision and solid bass presence. This is also routinely demonstrated with the show's theme song, as bouncy keys are placed in the fronts and crisp percussion springs forth from the surrounds. Directionality is spot-on, and viewers can track instruments, characters, and objects through space with ease.

The Morning Show: Seasons 1 & 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No on-disc supplemental features are included.

The Morning Show: Seasons 1 & 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Engrossing and bingeable, The Morning Show leverages some well-established and bankable stars and presents them to a viewing audience in a manner that is slightly removed from how we've grown accustomed to seeing them. Carrell and Witherspoon can still occasionally leverage their comedic skills, and Aniston still has moments to be adorable, but they are largely called upon to present different sides of themselves here. The events of our recent past provide the fictional morning news show a real world grounding that provides a level of authenticity to the characters no matter how outlandish their behavior or the situation may be. The lack of supplemental material is disappointing, but the technical specifications are high. For fans of the stars or of realistic, contemporary dramas, The Morning Show: Seasons 1 & 2 comes very highly recommended.