The Apple TV original series The Morning Show has already aired its fourth season, with a fifth season on the way, but for those without the streaming service, or those who want to own the series, physical media company Fifth Season has just released the third season of the series on DVD (sorry, no Blu-ray option this time around—we previously reviewed their Blu-ray release of the first two seasons).

The Morning Show mixes real events with the character drama surrounding those who work at the fictitious UBA Network, on the nationwide morning news program called The Morning Show (aka TMS), which is broadcast from a studio in Manhattan. As the second season came to a close, UBA CEO Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) had a planned a massive fanfare-filled launch for the company’s new UBA+ streaming service, but COVID hit, forcing him to cancel all of the launch publicity events. TMS co-anchor Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) was desperately searching for her missing brother, with assistance from Cory. Bradley had also struck up a romantic relationship with YDA co-host and former news anchor at UBA Laura Peterson (Julianna Margulies), and planned to ride out COVID with her in Montana. Meanwhile, Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) came down with COVID, and was forced to work from home, where she planned to let viewers follow her experience with the disease. Executive Producer Chip Black (Mark Duplass) claimed that he had also tested positive, in order to move in with Alex and help produce her segments, when in actuality his test had come back negative.

As the third season opens, we jump ahead two years to March 10, 2022. Alex now has her own show on the network, Alex Unfiltered, and has been volunteered to participate in the maiden voyage of Hyperion One’s suborbital rocket launch with UBA CEO Cory Ellison and tech billionaire Paul Marks (Jon Hamm). Cory had a chance meeting with Paul during COVID and the two hit it off. Alex has been with UBA for 20 years and feels like she deserves to be a real partner, with double the salary, profit participation and a seat on board, but Cory seems to be ignoring her requests. Cory has been secretly working behind the board’s back to arrange a deal for Paul to buy UBA, and give the company the influx of cash it desperately needs. Meanwhile, Bradley now hosts the UBA Evening News with Bradley Jackson, and meteorologist Yanko Flores (Néstor Carbonell) now hosts The Morning Show, where he is joined by new co-host/former Olympian Christine Hunter (Nicole Beharie). Still manning the control room are producers Mia Jordan (Karen Pittman) & Chip, and overseeing things is the President of UBA’s news division, Stella Bak (Greta Lee).

The third season primarily follows this storyline of the potential buyout of UBA, and the shuffling loyalties as various players jockey for position and power behind the scenes, to put them in the best position should the buyout happen. Jon Hamm is a great addition to the cast this season. The audience is constantly left wondering if Paul can actually be trusted. He seems to be regularly scheming with his assistant Amanda Robinson (Tig Notaro). He also has some mysterious past connection to Stella, and Stella’s old friend Kate Danton (Natalie Moralis), who was recently fired by Paul, may have some damning evidence on the tech billionaire and his company.

Early on in the season, UBA faces a cyberattack, with hackers seizing control of the building, and capturing all of the personal data and email exchanges of the employees. This has repercussions that ripple throughout the rest of the season. As this information starts to leak out, it causes unrest among the employees, especially producer Mia, when she discovers a massive sex/race wage gap and possible anger towards DEI hiring from one of the board members. And Bradley is constantly worried about a very personal video between her and Laura getting leaked, as well as some mysterious situation involving her brother Hal coming to light.

The fifth episode of the season jumps back to March 2020 to fill in some of what happened to the characters during the 2-year time gap between the seasons, and sees how they ended up in the positions they are in now. It also sheds some light on some of the secrets various folks are worried will come out due to the hack.

It felt like characters such as Alex and Chip were put on the backburner for much of this season, putting a lot more of the focus on new character Paul as well as characters like Stella, Bradley and Cory. Alex still had an interesting arc, she just didn’t seem to be a main focus like in previous seasons. Overall, I think it was a solid season, giving some personal and professional shakeups for the characters to deal with. I was never bored while binging through the 10 episodes of the season. Though I’m not sure the flashback episode completely worked or was necessary. It may have been better to just show some of that earlier on in smaller flashbacks rather than to devote a full episode. The season tells a complete arc in regards to this buyout, while also setting up some changes for the show’s fourth season (which has already aired, but is not yet available on disc).

Having some of the storylines tied to real events helps to inform or place the events in a timeline and also helps to establish this fictitious network as part of the real world. However, I think sometimes this show takes more of a one-sided left-leaning approach and gets a bit political at times. For example, in the opener there is a storyline where a 19-year-old is arrested for taking an abortion pill from Mexico into Texas and Bradley wants to cover the story and protect the person involved. There doesn’t really seem to be a point to even having this other than to make a political statement, as the storyline gets dropped almost immediately without any real resolution. There is also another storyline regarding January 6, but in this case it actually becomes a larger part of the show since it gets tied into Bradley’s storyline for the season. She was covering the Capitol at the time it happened, and ended up having a personal connection to the event. There are other historical events that also get a passing mention, like the war in Ukraine and the elimination of Roe v. Wade, which again feel more like just an excuse to make a political comment rather than having any connection or impact on the story/characters. I watch TV to escape from real-world politics, so this kind of stuff gets annoying after a while.

Fifth Season has released this third season of The Morning Show only DVD for physical media despite its previous “Seasons 1&2” release also getting a Blu-ray option, and despite the third season receiving a Blu-ray option in the UK just this past August.

I was sent the DVD for review. The picture is looks pretty solid overall and great for a DVD, but as someone who pretty much only watches HD and 4K these days, I thought it lacked that little extra level of detail and sharpness you would get with an HD presentation. The audio track features clear dialogue throughout as well as some nice use of the stereo and surround channels to provide an immersive feeling—this is especially noticeable during some of the scenes in the busy studio, where you can hear some of the background commotion.

The season’s ten episodes are split across four discs, which are stacked on a peg on the right side of a standard-sized DVD keepcase. Unfortunately the set does not include any bonus material, there is no digital copy, and our review copy did not include a slipcover.

One continual gripe I have with Fifth Season’s disc releases is that they don’t put chapter stops immediately following the opening title sequences, forcing you to manually fast forward through the opening titles to get to the actual show. Even when watching these shows on Apple TV, it’s a single click to bypass the opening titles—I wish Fifth Season would start adding these title chapter stops to their disc releases!

What’s Included:

Episodes: (8:51:13)

• All 10 episodes of the third season on 4 discs:
  Disc 1 (2:38:24): “The Kármán Line”, “Ghost in the Machine”, “White Noise”
  Disc 2 (2:41:10): “The Green Light”, “Love Island”, “The Stanford Student”
  Disc 3 (1:47:44): “Strict Scrutiny”, “DNF”
  Disc 4 (1:43:55): “Update Your Priors”, “The Overview Effect”

Extras:

There is no bonus material on this release.

Final Thoughts:

I haven’t been watching The Morning Show as it airs on Apple TV, so I have been catching up as Fifth Season releases the show on disc. The series features an amazing cast, and each season builds to an exciting conclusion that makes you want to see where things head next. The DVD has solid picture and sound, but doesn’t include any bonus material. It’s great to see more streaming service original shows get a physical release for those who don’t have access to or don’t want to subscribe to a streaming service, but I wish this had received a Blu-ray option like the first two seasons.