The Morning Show review – Jennifer Aniston returns in a masterwork for the #MeToo era

Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carrell match the Friends star stride for stride in this funny, fearless drama from Apple TV+

What a strange and rather lovely thing it is to watch an actor you have grown up with for two and a half decades finally come into her kingdom. So it is with Jennifer Aniston who, 25 years after she arrived on our screens in Friends, returns in a TV series for the first time since the hit show ended in 2004.

The Morning Show is a slick, sophisticated venture stuffed with powerhouse performances - Aniston's foremost among them. She plays Alex Levy, the co-anchor of a morning talk show whose life is thrown into disarray when her co-presenter Mitch (Steve Carrell, proving alongside Aniston that if you can do comedy you can do anything) is accused of sexual misconduct and fired. Their chemistry kept the waning show afloat - without it, she becomes even more vulnerable. Behind the scenes, network executives have already been looking to replace her ageing presence. This is their opportunity to do so, at least until Alex starts to fight furiously back while the lies, rumours, deals, double-crossings and backstabbings multiply. In a coup d'etat, she installs as her new partner a scrappy regional reporter, Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon), who is experiencing 15 minutes of fame as a voice of the people after candid footage of her at a coal-mining protest went viral.