More Thoughts on the Entertainment Industry and the Pandemic

In my last post of this nature, I looked at practical considerations, what things might look like as Hollywood takes its first tentative steps back toward reopening, whenever that might be. Today, I’m thinking less about the making of film/TV and more about the content, with a particular focus on TV.

To start with, I wouldn’t say I’m hoping to see COVID-19-related storylines whenever TV shows come back. Given all that the world has been going through, it would likely 1) feel too soon/capitalizing on something awful for dramatic valuable and 2) double down on a lot of bad feelings that we’ve all been living in for a long time. Chances are, when new TV shows are being filmed, I’m going to be in the mood/need for some escapism.

(That said, I’d mostly be completely fine if any shows set in the present day incorporate “phase 2/3” reopening aspects into the backdrop if it keeps the actors safer. Not “all pandemic stories all the time” stuff, but little things that reflect that half-open society we’ll likely be living in at that time – desks at work spaced further apart, video-chatting with a friend instead of meeting for coffee, etc. I’m all for anything that would offer more protections for anyone and everyone involved in making the shows.)

But even if I don’t want to see a lot of it moving forward, I find that I am curious about how the characters on various shows I watch would be faring right now. A couple shows have dipped their toes into this – Parks and Rec reunited for a remotely-filmed special, and All Rise recently did a remote episode showing the effects of the pandemic on the legal system – but I wonder about all kinds of random shows. Again, I don’t even necessarily want or need to see any of it (unless it’s something short/special filmed now, like the above examples.) It’s more just food for thought.

Doctor Who was one of the first shows that struck me, probably because they have been putting out content lately and have included small bits about characters quarantining. And that got me thinking: the last we saw, the companions were all dropped off at home in early 2020. When will they reunite with the Doctor, and what will they have been through since then? Will they feel the Doctor abandoned on the brink of a pandemic? Will their experiences change their perspective on traveling in time and space at all, make them more cautious or make them want to savor every second (or maybe just want to give Earth a wide berth for a good long while)? Someday, decades down the line, will the Twenty-Second Doctor or something take their companion to early 2020 to witness this moment in history?

Oddly enough, Black-ish is another show that I really wonder about. It’s not one of my favorites, but there are a lot of elements about the show that dovetail really specifically into what’s happening now. Bow is both a doctor and on the California Board of Health, so one way or another, she’d be involved. Dre’s parents, who are older and more at-risk, are regulars on the show, and Dre himself has diabetes. Jack and Diane would be doing distance learning (who’d supervise? Junior? Dre, while working from home?), and what about Zoe? With her school closed, would she be back home on hiatus from Grown-ish? I imagine the Johnsons’ finances would shield them from many of the racial disparities occurring amid the pandemic, but I’m sure Dre would talk about its disproportionate impace on the Black community, and the show might do something about Black people in face masks being hassled by police.

Then there’s the superhero shows. Granted, the Arrowverse stuff doesn’t take place on our Earth, but it still poses interesting questions. Black Lightning and Batwoman are both shows that involve huge wealth/class gaps, so they’d have an opportunity to explore those aspects of the pandemic (in addition to, again, racial disparities with Black Lightning,) and Supergirl includes aliens in the mix (would any/all of them be susceptible? Would the virus affect aliens differently? Would bigoted conspiracy theorists in National City think COVID-19 was alien in origin?) But more so than that, there’s simply the question, what is a superhero’s place in a pandemic? Would the Flash be running PPE to hospitals, would Supergirl be quelling anti-lockdown protests? How do you keep your city safe when you’re sheltering in place? When you’re used to defeating threats with super strength or super speed or lightning powers, what do you do in the face of a threat you can’t fight?

I haven’t latched onto too many medical shows over the years, but of the ones I have watched, the one that most piques my curiosity of “what would they have done” is Scrubs. At its best, that show did such an impeccable job of balancing humor and pathos, life and death. I can only imagine the kind of story they could have put together of the doctors and nurses of Sacred Heart keeping one another going while doing everything they can to treat their patients amid strained resources.