There are just a few causes The Morning Present’s 16 nominations jumped off the web page once they have been introduced final month. For one, the noms have been concentrated in just a few high-profile spots on the poll, particularly performing. Two of the six contenders for Excellent Lead Actress in a Drama went to Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon. Three of the seven nods for Supporting Actor in a Drama went to Billy Crudup, Mark Duplass, and Jon Hamm. 4 of the seven Supporting Actress in a Drama nods went to Nicole Beharie, Greta Lee, Karen Pittman, and Holland Taylor. It was Succession-style class domination.
This 12 months’s nomination haul marks a major leveling up for the Apple TV+ collection. Season one made an honest little splash on the 2020 Emmys, with eight whole nominations and a win for Crudup. Two years later, the present solely garnered three whole nominations (together with performing nods for Crudup and Witherspoon) for its much-maligned second season. Normally, as soon as a present’s nomination totals start to lower 12 months over 12 months, they don’t get a rebound. However The Morning Present did simply that as a part of an total groundbreaking 12 months for Apple TV+. After breakthrough success with Ted Lasso and (to a lesser extent) Severance, Apple positioned a number of reveals within the high classes this 12 months, together with comedy collection nominee Palm Royale and restricted collection Classes in Chemistry. It additionally bought its first-ever nominations in excellent drama collection with two reveals: slovenly spy collection Sluggish Horses and The Morning Present.
However The Morning Present isn’t simply Apple’s most-nominated collection. Among the many main classes (performing, writing, directing, and collection), TMS’s 11 nominations topped all reveals. All! Not The Bear or Shōgun or The Crown. The Morning Present. But point out it in well mannered firm and also you’ll possible get extra giggles and derision than not. How did the present that was the butt of each “Reese Witherspoon in area” joke carry out higher than probably the most critically lauded collection on TV?
Beneath new showrunner Charlotte Stoudt, The Morning Present’s third season bounced again from a chaotic season two to current a extra coherent set of episodes in its third outing. I requested Vulture critic Jackson McHenry — a Morning Present professional of the primary order — to weigh in on my sense that the present actually did degree up:
The Morning Present has at all times had a sure ineffable maintain on me. (It’s truly fairly effable; it’s film stars.) But it surely wasn’t till the third season that it got here into its personal as truly compelling tv. The primary season is a slog, constructed round a good suggestion — how a TV community reacts to a Me Too scandal — that was executed poorly and hamstrung by a weak Steve Carell efficiency as a Matt Lauer stand-in. The second season was a serious step up in power in that it grew to become plainly bonkers, watchable in the way in which you’ll be able to’t look away from one thing skidding off the rails. (Jennifer Aniston livestreams her expertise with COVID! Carell drives off a cliff after hanging out with a lady making an anti-cancel-culture documentary! That Simon & Garfunkel needle drop!)
The third season has all that manic power, however it channels it right into a slightly competent, virtually self-aware, pulpy drama. Free from the Carell plot and injected with the power of a brand new showrunner, the present is lighter on its ft, sending Reese Witherspoon’s Bradley Jackson to area in its first episode as if to say “we all know this isn’t too critical,” then spending the remainder of the season satirizing the collapse of community tv — all, after all, funded by a tech large. The scenes with Aniston and her new love curiosity, Jon Hamm, spark with precise chemistry; Nicole Beharie offers a show-stealing efficiency as she grills Holland Taylor about racism on the community; and, sure, Bradley Jackson was on the storming of the Capitol. The present matured into the type of factor that’s not often tried anymore, and deceptively onerous to drag off: a grand, old school prime-time cleaning soap. It solely took a while and a number of other truckloads of Apple cash to get there.
Even because it’s matured, The Morning Present has retained a major enchantment for a media-savvy viewers watching the present both partially or solely for the camp worth. It’s a tricky needle to string when a present is primarily earnest however — as Stoudt defined in her interview with Jackson on the shut of season three — the collection has begun to lean into its zany spirit. “One factor I’ve at all times cherished about The Morning Present was the tonal slide, as we name it,” she stated. “You possibly can enter a scene that’s apparently dramatic and it will possibly develop into absurd or vice versa. I believe that’s emblematic of the time we’re dwelling in.”
In its ultimate season final 12 months, Succession ran roughshod over the Emmys’ drama classes, racking up 27 whole nominations, 14 of them within the performing classes, and profitable six of the seven main drama awards. That’s a major void on the high of the mountain, and for a lot of the 2023–24 TV season, few contenders emerged to assert area on the summit. The Crown dropped an underwhelming ultimate season in November. Shōgun appeared primed for restricted collection till FX made a last-minute technique change in Might. New reveals like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Curse, and 3 Physique Drawback have been mentioned as contenders, as have been established reveals that had but to catch on with Emmy voters like The Gilded Age and Sluggish Horses, however query marks have been in every single place. What wasn’t anyplace was a drama that hooked the Zeitgeist like Succession had. Floating into that void, like Bradley Jackson in low-Earth orbit, got here The Morning Present.
In fact, “simply take Succession’s spot” is a process simpler assigned than completed. HBO spent an entire 12 months biking by way of packages like The Regime and The Sympathizer that didn’t catch the flowery of Emmy voters in any respect (Robert Downey Jr.’s sole nomination for the latter hardly counts as a win for a present a couple of biracial Vietnamese refugee in Seventies America), a lot much less on the degree of Succession. It’s telling that the present on HBO’s roster behaving most like Succession when it comes to storytelling is Trade, which has been fully shut out by the Emmys up to now. (It’s forthcoming third season might change that — test again with us subsequent 12 months.)
And but as most profitable reveals do, Succession casts a recognizable shadow over the present crop of TV dramas, even in methods which can be possible unintended. Clearly, The Crown predates Succession, however you’ll be able to’t actually speak concerning the royals with out stepping into problems with monarchical bloodlines and a matriarch who may not assume her inheritor obvious can hack it. Shōgun relies on 50-year-old supply materials, however because the present made its approach from manufacturing to air, eyes will need to have lit up throughout FX’s advertising division with recognition of the reveals’ shared themes of dynastic inheritance. The Gilded Age? New cash supplanting the previous. Fallout? A toddler turns in opposition to a mother or father who has misplaced the plot.
As for The Morning Present, there are many methods to make the argument that when you squint, it’s taking part in in the identical sandbox that Succession did. Each reveals are/have been tremendously cognizant of the grim state of American media. Each function predatory tech billionaires out to dismantle legacy media firms. Each killed off their problematic lead male characters in transit.
In the case of Emmy voters, dramas take time to settle in. Whereas three of the final six winners in Excellent Comedy Sequence gained for his or her debut seasons, that’s very a lot not the case in drama. Since Homeland gained proper out of the gate in 2012, solely as soon as has a debut season gained Excellent Drama Sequence (that will be The Handmaid’s Story in 2017). For Emmy voters, a present with as a lot star energy as The Morning Present will get onerous to disregard three seasons in.
This one works hand in hand with explanations 2 and three. Erratic manufacturing schedules normalized within the age of Peak TV — see Stranger Issues producing 4 seasons over the course of six years — mixed with the work stoppages of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes meant that former Emmy faves The White Lotus, The Final of Us, Home of the Dragon, Severance, Squid Recreation, Euphoria, Andor, Yellowjackets, and, sure, Stranger Issues all sat out the 2023–24 Emmy eligibility window. All of the sudden, that post-Succession void bought even wider, and all of the sudden, The Morning Present was one of many uncommon dramas in competition with any type of Emmy pedigree in any respect.
The Morning Present didn’t simply again its approach into 16 nominations. Apple TV+ engaged in a savvy marketing campaign, one which can have discovered assist among the many sorts of voters who gravitated towards Succession’s mirroring of the fraught media panorama or The Handmaid’s Story’s feminist urgency.
The Morning Present’s third season had a number of Emmy-friendly property to work with, not least of which was new forged member Hamm, who performs tech billionaire Paul Marks. Hamm is a large Emmy favourite, an 18-time nominee throughout a number of reveals (together with 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and Finest Actor in a Drama winner for Mad Males in 2015. Hamm is an actor Emmy voters have a tendency to hunt out in no matter context, evidenced by his twin noms this 12 months for Fargo and The Morning Present. As one awards strategist put it: “TMS stars two of probably the most well-known folks on the planet, with a really deep bench of unbelievable supporting actors. You possibly can clearly see that’s the case with the ten performing nominations. SAG members make up an enormous share of voters, so being a present that clearly performs effectively with its performers helped it.”
TMS additionally benefited from a viral clip of a scene the place new morning anchor Chris (Nicole Beharie) confronts UBS boss Sybil (Holland Taylor) over leaked emails that exposed Sybil making racist statements. Virality generally is a double-edged sword, as viral clips can generally be foolish or embarrassing to the supply materials, however on this case, it was a For Your Consideration clip — for Beharie, Taylor, and the present itself — that bought handed round throughout social media. Even the present’s January 6 story line, which garnered a number of raised eyebrows and barely stifled laughter throughout social media (that will be the dangerous type of viral), might have given extra earnest voters a sense that The Morning Present was dealing in necessary issues of the day.
In fact, regardless of The Morning Present’s sensible and in the end fairly profitable marketing campaign, not all people is sort of so keen to acknowledge TMS as a standard-bearer for TV drama. After we broached the likelihood that The Morning Present would possibly develop into to Apple what Succession was to HBO, one insider at an AppleTV+ rival stated, “If they honestly assume that’s one thing that’s potential, they’re delusional. You must be self-aware about your reveals.” (I ought to word that on this case, the delusion is all mine, as nobody from The Morning Present or Apple would remark for this text — whether or not to check the present to Succession or in any other case.)
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