13 Must-Watch Shows Like 'The Morning Show'
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The Morning Show recently garnered 16 Emmy nominations for its third season, including its first-ever nom for Outstanding Drama Series, and if you’re anything like me, you can’t wait ‘til Season 4 rolls around to see what the Apple+ show is going to do next with its wild storylines and big budgets. (Season 4 cast salaries alone will cost north of $50 million, with stars Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon each earning $2 million per episode, according to Bloomberg). So far new cast members include William Jackson Harper, the Emmy- and Tony-nominated actor from The Good Place (he’ll play Ben, a self-assured Head of Sports at the network); Oscar winner Marion Cotillard (an operative named Celine Dumont); Jeremy Irons (he’s playing Aniston’s father) and Aaron Pierre (guest-starring as a lauded visual artist).
While Season 3, which aired its final episode back in November 2023, offered a lot of action—corporate intrigue, political maneuvering and hot sex between Aniston and guest star Jon Hamm—the new season is still a ways off. I’m bingeing the following shows that have some of the same elements I love as The Morning Show—I’m talking strong female rivals/friends, broadcast TV settings or ripped-from-the-headlines social issues (in TMS, we re-lived #MeToo and the January 6 Capitol Attack). Binge these 13 hour-long dramas with strong characters, rich plots and notes of smart humor, and savor TV with a bit of meat on its bones to hold us all over until the as-yet-unannounced debut of Season 4 of The Morning Show.
60 Binge-Worthy TV Shows & Where to Watch Them
Female Rivals-to-Friends Shows
1. Land of Women
Apple+
Cast: Eva Longoria, Carmen Maura, Victoria Bazua
Number of Seasons: 1
Women vying for power and to make a quality product in the workplace is a common theme in both The Morning Show and Land of Women, a 2024 dramedy I’ve been loving on Apple+. In this show, Eva Longoria (Desperate Housewives) plays a fancy New York lady who has to ditch dreams of running her just-opened wine boutique when thugs show up threatening her family, thanks to her husband’s shady dealings. She collects her mom from assisted living, compellingly played by Spanish film legend Maura, and her daughter, charismatic newcomer Victoria Bazua, from boarding school, and escapes to her ancestral home to hide out in the rural winemaking hinterlands of Spain. She’s forced to evade criminals, deal with family betrayal and make a bestselling wine in 8 episodes, all the while bantering with the women in her family as well as the local female-run vintners.
2. Damages
Hulu
Cast: Glenn Close, Rose Byrne, Ryan Phillippe
Number of Seasons: 5
Debuting in 2007, this show, which is streaming on Hulu, really holds up as a master class in scenery-chewing. There’s Glenn Close as a powerful attorney who hires promising junior associate Rose Byrne—but the allyship really takes a turn into the show’s five-season run. As in The Morning Show, you’re watching for both the actual story beats—here they include murder, FBI corruption, Ponzi schemes and more—as well as the never-quite-settled relationship between the two powerful female leads. Bonus talent: Martin Short is a guest star in Season 3.
3. Girls on the Bus
Nicole Rivelli/Max
Cast: Melissa Benoist, Natasha Behnam, Christina Elmore and Carla Gugino
Number of Seasons: 1
Did you know The Morning Show was based on a book named Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV, written by Brian Stelter about The Today Show? I didn’t, but that grounding in real reported research helps the show ring true. That’s a similar texture I picked up on watching Girls on the Bus, a show that Amy Chozick co-created, based on her 8 years of experiences chronicling Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail, culminating in the 2018 book Chasing Hillary. The show’s four central characters follow politicians on the campaign trail while indulging in camaraderie, competition and so many cocktails.
4. Hacks
Jake Giles Netter/Max
Cast: Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul Downs
Number of Seasons: 3
You haven’t watched Hacks yet? Stop reading this right now and stream it, since it’s the perfect intergenerational comedy. The story of a tough-talking female comic refreshing her act—then plotting entertainment world domination—after hiring a 25-year-old comedy writer is basically a ribald version of some of the Jennifer Aniston/Reese Witherspoon rivalry/cooperation in TMS. Though Hacks is billed as a comedy, not a drama like The Morning Show, I’d classify it more as a dramedy, since I found myself really relating to the central characters’ depth and growth through subsequent seasons. And the supporting characters bloom, too!
Broadcasting Shows
5. The Newsroom
Cast: Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer, Alison Pill
Number of Seasons: 3
The rapid-fire dialogue of TMS (especially those delivered in times of crisis by Machiavellian network head Billy Crudup) evoke Aaron Sorkin, and this 2012 show is Sorkin at his most high-minded. Daniels plays a demanding network anchor whose team, including his ex-girlfriend and executive producer (Mortimer) and young associate producer (Pill). There’s a lot of sanctimony, but the sophistication and sexual tension between the leads moves the show along nicely…as do guest spots by Jane Fonda.
6. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Prime Video
Cast: Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, Amanda Peet, Sarah Paulson
Number of Seasons: 1 (22 episodes)
This 2006 drama-comedy is creator Aaron Sorkin’s fictionalized treatment of Saturday Night Live, a weekly comedy variety show that is as much about humor as it is about shaking off the restraints of corporate overlords’ profit motive and free speech repression. Perry and Whitford play co-show runners who are coaxed into returning to the show they left in order to re-create its glory years, under the auspices of a network executive played by Peet. The show’s a fast-paced hoot that attempts to balance sketch comedy hijinks with recurring motifs like Paulson’s character’s ongoing debates about faith with ex-boyfriend Perry. Fun gossip note: Perry’s character is inspired by Sorkin, while his love interest in the show Paulson, is said to be based on Sorkin’s ex, star Kristin Chenoweth.
7. Lessons in Chemistry
Apple TV+
Cast: Brie Larson, Lewis Pullman, Aja Naomi King
Number of Seasons: 1
This show, a ‘50s-era fantasy for feminists who like like to cook, is the story of a woman who is frustrated by the institutional sexism of her research lab, until she meets a brilliant fellow scientist who is as socially awkward as she is but equally charming. Tragedy ensues, a child enters the picture and viola, in the way of screwball comedies, this single working lady becomes the star of a home cooking show that uses chemistry principles to teach women how to prep better meals. Larson’s crisp yet caring relationships with other women in her community, as well as her negotiations with network and lab honchos, recall the machinations of TMS.
Current Events Backdrops
8. The West Wing
Getty Images/NBC
Cast: Martin Sheen, Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford
Number of Seasons: 7
If you’ve never seen it or if you’ve seen it before, I’m here to argue that election year 2024 is the perfect time to stream The West Wing, a cool and refreshing drink of water for a thirsty nation. The story of President Jed Bartlett and his crack team of White House staffers covers similar territory to TMS’s high ideals and person foibles, set against a backdrop of international intrigue and domestic unrest, as well as simmering sexual tension.
9. Madam Secretary
David M. Russell/CBS
Cast: Téa Leoni, Tim Daly, Bebe Neuwirth
Number of Seasons: 6
Leoni is an ex-CIA agent, college professor and mom who is pressed into service as the U.S. Secretary of State after a sudden death, and she evenly dispatches 6 seasons’ worth of hostage crises, environmental emergencies and more. The relationship with her chief of staff Neuwirth has big TMS female boss energy, and we’re here for it—as well as contemporary representations of female political leadership.
10. Scandal
Kelsey McNeal/ABC
Cast: Kerry Washington, Guillermo Diaz, Darby Stanchfield, Katie Lowes, Tony Goldwyn
Number of Seasons: 7
Welcome to the Shondaverse, TV creator Shonda Rhimes’s powerhouse collection of heavyweight women and the cast of characters who support (and backstab) them. Arguably the jewel in Rhimes’s crown, Scandal is the story of political fixer, Olivia Pope, an ex-White House public relations official who comes to work behind the scenes while clandestinely carrying on with the married president, played by Goldwyn. Washington’s complicated allegiances and take-no-prisoners style recalls Aniston’s character in TMS.
11. The Good Wife
Prime Video
Cast: Julianna Margulies, Josh Charles, Christine Baranski, Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Number of Seasons: 7
This show went off the air eight years ago, but the show’s creative stock has kept blooming to the present day: It spawned spinoffs The Good Fight for 6 seasons and currently, another spinoff called Elspeth is in its second season on CBS. My advice? Go back to the beginning with the story of Alicia Florrick, the titular good wife whose politico husband gets caught in a sex scandal, so she goes back to work as an attorney (as one does). The show works thanks to a tight cast led by Margulies, and current events are alluded to in cases that come before Florrick. Also, love the slow simmer between Florrick and Will Gardner (Josh Charles), her old friend who is a partner in the law firm where she works.
12. The Diplomat
Netflix
Cast: Keri Russell, Rufus Sewell, David Gyasi
Number of Seasons: 1
is. When she is named as the ambassador to the U.K., her complex relationship to her politico husband, as well as her mandate to prove herself to a host of new political enemies brings all the drama. It’s giving notes of the trajectory of the underdog Reese Witherspoon plays in TMS.
13. Homeland
Hulu
Cast: Claire Danes, Mandy Patinkin, Damian Lewis, Linus Roache, Costa Ronin
Number of Seasons: 6
The Morning Show features a wrenching subplot about the mental illness and addiction of Bradley’s brother, and how his mental imbalance fuels his getting mixed up in domestic unrest. Homeland dives even deeper into issues of mental illness by introducing us to Carrie Mathison, a CIA agent whose bipolar disorder threatens her job and ability to do her job protecting the U.S. here and overseas. The show’s intelligent and sometimes wrenching depictions of public service and private heartbreak have made the show universally acclaimed.
