When Jennifer Aniston signed up to help launch Apple’s new streaming TV service with a star-studded drama set in the colorful, cutthroat world of morning news, it seemed straightforward enough.
Then #MeToo happened.
Aniston, preparing for her first return to television since Friends, watched along with the rest of America in 2017 as anchors from NBC’s Matt Lauer to CBS’sCharlie Rose lost their jobs after being accused by women of sexual misconduct.
“Once #MeToo happened, obviously the conversation has drastically changed—and then we just incorporated it,” said Aniston, who stars in The Morning Showalong with Reese Witherspoon.
Both actresses are also executive producers of the series, which will premiere on Nov. 1 when Apple TV+ goes live.
“We all really sat and thought about how the tone would be. And we wanted it to be raw and honest and vulnerable and messy and not black-and-white,” Aniston told journalists at a Los Angeles press conference.
The result is an edgy, humorous and—at times— surprisingly dark look behind the scenes at a fictional New York-based morning news show.
In events which uncannily mirror Lauer’s real-life dismissal, the pilot sees Aniston’s character announce on-air the dismissal of her male co-anchor, played by Steve Carell, following multiple, anonymous accusations.
It sets the scene for a battle over who will replace him—and prompts questions about how much the group of fiercely ambitious journalists and executives knew about his actions.
“I feel like what the heart of it is about, it’s about how people lie to themselves,” said showrunner and writer Kerry Ehrin (Friday Night Lights) .
“It’s impossible to talk about morning news and not deal with #MeToo—it would be somewhat negligent,” Ehrin added.
She describes the show’s characters as “in many ways, dark people, messed up.”