Is The Morning Show a good show? Well, early reviews suggested it wasn’t. Reviews for later episodes say it might be mediocre. And some folks might think it’s great. But, according to the executive producers of the drama, early reviews weren’t positive for a reason not necessarily tied to the show itself.
The Verge has the report on Tuesday, based on comments made at Recode‘s Code Media convention. Executive producers Mimi Leder (who also serves as a director for the series) and Kerry Ehrin said that the early reviews for the drama, which were not all that positive, and led them to believe the reviews were basically an “attack on Apple”.
When those reviews came in, I didn’t know what show they were watching,” Leder said during a talk at Code Media in Los Angeles. “I thought they were nuts. I thought there were a lot of Apple haters who just wanted Apple to fail. The reviews felt like an attack on Apple.
Apple TV+ launched on November 1, and, with it, arrived with a handful of content to watch on day one. That included the aforementioned The Morning Show, along with sci-fi/fantasy series See, comedy Dickinson, and alt-history drama For All Mankind. None of these shows were heavily praised in those early reviews, but it sounds like things have turned around for the better, at least for The Morning Show.
Leder said that it’s “not fair” how the first reviews painted the series, especially in light of the Apple TV+ service as a whole. However, she added that people “love the show” so it sounds like things are getting better.
When you see reviews, they’re looking at it from the whole business aspect, [like] ‘what is Apple doing?,’” Ehrin said. “It’s kind of separate from us.
Neither executive producer has concrete numbers as far as viewership goes. Color me surprised that Apple’s executives haven’t passed on that information (yet?). But apparently the higher-ups at Apple are “very happy” about the viewer numbers so far, which leads the EPs to believe the general audience is definitely happy with what’s going on so far in the series.
As a point of reference? The Morning Show‘s audience score with Rotten Tomatoes is at 95 percent. So that’s something! And just for fun, let’s take a look at the other audience scores for the Apple TV+ launch series:
- Dickinson: 96%
- For All Mankind: 85%
- See: 86%
If you ask me, Apple is indeed very happy with these numbers.
If you’re keeping tabs on this show so far, what do you think?