The newsroom-set Apple TV series, starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, is back for a fourth run. Since its 2019 premiere, it's become known for its outlandish plot lines.

Back in September 2019, Apple announced its late-to-the-party streamer, Apple TV , which it boasted would "feature originals from the world's greatest storytellers". One of these stories was its flagship drama, The Morning Show, which premiered as part of its November launch. A glossy, prestige series about the cut-throat world of morning television shows, one of its biggest draws was the magnitude of the stars attached: A-list talent like Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon – who cost the streamer a reported $2 million an episode each – and Steve Carell.

(Aniston and Witherspoon are also executive producers on the show.)

The series was set to be a searing take on a New York-based media company, and would feature Aniston, Witherspoon and Carell as the presenters of a long-running breakfast news magazine programme. It was inspired by Brian Stelter's 2013 book Top of the Morning, which detailed the real-life off-screen antics of the anchors of American TV's most popular, mainstream morning shows. However, when NBC news anchor Matt Lauer was fired amid accusations of sexual misconduct, it took The Morning Show on a different path, as the show was rewritten to focus on a #MeToo case of sexual assault behind the scenes at the fictional UBA network.

Praised for addressing this issue with some nuance, it struck a chord with viewers when the first episodes aired in November 2019. #MeToo plotline aside, it was also assiduous in making itself timely by referencing other real-world current affairs events, from the Los Angeles wildfires to a mass shooting in Las Vegas.

Over the course of the following two seasons, however, the show began to take some wilder leaps: Alex Levy (Aniston) became the nation's sweetheart after live-streaming a feverish broadcast of herself suffering from Covid. Another host, Bradley Jackson (Witherspoon), fresh from a surprise lesbian relationship, flew into space with a tech billionaire in a rocket. In a flashback in the same series, she also got caught up in the Capitol insurrection, filming the siege until she spotted her brother as one of the rioters. One character literally drove off a cliff at the end of series two – which felt like a statement on the show's whole refashioned narrative approach.

Many baffled critics began to wonder what exactly the show was trying to be. In a piece towards the end of 2023's third series, The Guardian's Adrian Horton dubbed it "the most ridiculous show on TV", while

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