TV During a Pandemic
By: Mallory Johnson
Recently, the TV shows that I love have been returning from their longer-than-normal hiatuses. These shows include “This Is Us”, “The Good Doctor”, “Station 19”, and “Grey’s Anatomy”, and I want to put a SPOILER ALERT in place here. Also, this article will be discussing the COVID-19 pandemic, deaths, and police brutality, so here is a trigger warning. The shows above are taking on a huge responsibility and tackling the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. It is a little weird turning on one of these shows and hearing them talk about something that is still going on in real life. Because of this, TV is not escapism anymore, it is reality. This makes it a bit hard to watch at times, especially when Randall, a black man, in “This Is Us” got a news notification on his phone about what happened with George Floyd, and seeing him watching the news with his family.
“The Good Doctor” premiere was very hard to watch, because it is a medical show that takes place in a hospital. It shows all the most difficult parts of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic: patients on ventilators, 18 hour shifts with masks, not being able to spend time with loved ones, grief, and death. I like how “The Good Doctor” is handling it; they are making sure we see how scary and uncomfortable having COVID-19 is, and how it for sure is not easy to be a healthcare worker right now. In “This Is Us”, at the start of the premiere episode, one of the characters mentioned Tom Hanks getting sick with COVID-19 and I had a flashback to the week of March 13th when I was first sent home from Brandon University, because I remembered that I was in my dorm when I heard that news.
The “Grey’s Anatomy” premiere was a crossover with “Station 19” (because “Station 19” is a “Grey’s Anatomy” spin off). “Station 19” is tackling the pandemic with mask wearing, sanitation, fire truck drives, applauding healthcare workers, and more. In the premiere, they made sure they showed how angry they were when they learned a group of teenagers were partying. In the two-hour “Grey’s Anatomy” premiere, they showed once again all the ins and outs of the pandemic, as the show is based in the medical field. They are showing that the doctors do not have enough personal protective equipment (which includes masks, gloves, and more). They are discussing how many of their patients they lose and reveal how taxing and exhausting being a healthcare worker is right now. The only part of the “Grey’s” episode that I did not like was how there were some clips with the doctors not wearing masks inside the hospital. I am pretty sure these scenes were filmed before COVID-19 struck, but they still could have reshot those scenes to make them less confusing and alarming for viewers.
On a happier note, there are plenty of good shows to watch on streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ that are irrelevant to the current political climate and pandemic. These include “New Girl”, “The Haunting of Bly Manor”, “Dead to Me”, “Emily in Paris”, and many others. These shows are great to binge if you need an escape from the harsh reality that the world is currently facing. I also highly recommend watching Disney movies, because they are light and enjoyable.