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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We'll finish up today with a call in on how much you are seeing pandemic world reflected in movies or TV shows you're watching, and how much you want it to be or if you'd rather avoid it. 212-433 WNYC, 433-9692. For example, when the Golden Globes were not televised on Sunday due to several scandals, notably a membership with zero Black voters, award season continued with yesterday's announcement of the SAG-AFTRA Award nominations.
Although the pandemic has impacted so much of the television and film industry, it hasn't made much of an appearance in front of the camera, think about it. Listeners, we're going to open up the phones for you now to share how you are seeing or not seeing COVID show up in what you're watching. 212-433 WNYC, 212-433-9692. I know one person who was telling me yesterday that they're kind of disoriented by this, the pandemic, the masks, the isolating, the remote, the everything. It's so much a part of life right now and when they watch contemporary TV shows, nevertheless, it's like it never happened.
What do you prefer? Do you prefer the omission because you would like to get away from all that when you watch TV or watch a movie or is it disorienting and you'd rather see people in masks more on the screen and things like that. Tweet @Brian Lehrer or give us a call at 212-433 WNYC, 433-9692. TV shows which work on a faster turnaround than film obviously have grappled with how to present the pandemic in various ways. Some show set in the present have completely ignored COVID while others like Law and Order: SVU, to take one example, have dropped the ball on mask-wearing as the latest season went on.
Some have put the pandemic in the past tense. The creators of South Park took their show far into the future with a post-COVID two-movie special. Here's a clip of the opening scene of the Sex and the City sequel called and just like that where Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte are waiting for a table at a very crowded restaurant. Carrie speaks first.
Carrie: Oh. [chuckles] Remember when we had to legally stand six feet apart from one another?
Miranda: Yes, I miss it.
Carrie: Oh, excuse us.
Brian: If you haven't seen it, I'll add, there were no masks or vaccination cards inside. Listeners, what has surprised you the most about how your favorite TV shows have or haven't to dress the biggest story of the past two years? 212-433 WNYC or in movies, 212-433-9692 or if you work in the industry, we know we've done segments explicitly for you who work in all kinds of arts and entertainment and you're so personally affected. Do you want to see it more on-screen?
Colleague writes to me that some shows have it both ways being set in the pandemic and not in the pandemic. For example, the two Shonda Rhimes shows, Station 19 and Grey's Anatomy, we're all about the pandemic last season, which makes sense in my colleague's opinion since their hospital and fire station shows set in Seattle where COVID first hit in the US. Masks, hazmat suits, hospital overruns, firehouse call to COVID emergencies, lead character on a respirator, this year they don't have any of that and end each show with a placard that says, "This season, Station 19 portrays a fictional post-pandemic world which portrays a hope for the future.
In real life, the pandemic is still raging, so maybe Shonda Rhimes is getting it right. Diana in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Diana.
Diana: Hi. Thanks for having me.
Brian: What do you watch and what do you want?
Diana: I do not want COVID to be part of my TV, for the most part. I want TV to be of escapism. When my girlfriend Ada and I watch Shark Tank, it is meant to be the escape. I can't even watch the season because there's too many COVID-specific products.
Brian: Diana, thank you very much. I think Leah in Manhattan is going to agree. Hi, Leah, you're on WNYC.
Leah: Hi, Brian. Yes, I agree with Diana and I think it's too soon. I think people want to escape. It's kind of like Trump the Musical, which will be great, but it's just too soon.
Brian: [laughs] Springtime for Donald. Leah, thank you, thank you very much.
Leah: Yes, exactly. Thanks.
Brian: Irene in Weehawken, you're on WNYC. Hi, Irene.
Irene: Hi, Brian. A couple of things that I've seen where a COVID plot has entered. One is that wasn't as appealing to me, but was very so poppery was the morning show on Apple TV+. I also watch the second season of Work in Progress, which is a Showtime. That was really useful in terms of it being the plot because the show already-- The protagonist is someone who has OCD, who is prone to anxiety. Seeing how this factor affects felt very real to the concerns of that.
Also, I do work doing background, which is being an extra in film and television. Nothing I've worked on so far, although I've caught glimpses of other shows, mostly procedurals, I think you were mentioning, where there has been contemporary masking, but in the work, the protocols are very, very intact. We are masked. It used to be much better at distancing, but we're tested beforehand. We're masked in everything up to the actual shoot, including the rehearsal. It's interesting transitioning gong into that world.
Brian: Is it a conversation on the set among the crew? Like, "Why are we showing this?"
Irene: I don't think so because I think the scripts exist and they are what they are. I think there are shows that are doing it and it just so happens the things that I've worked on have not been shows or scripts that include that. I also did briefly about the show, The White Lotus, which was apparently filmed and created during the pandemic, but I'm almost towards the end of it. It doesn't seem to reflect it at all, but I heard it to be [unintelligible 00:07:04] somehow.
Brian: I watched that one to the end. It's amazing, but definitely, there's-
Irene: I'm almost there and I love it. I voted for Jennifer Coolidge for a SAG Award nominee status.
Brian: She was so great at that. Irene, thank you very much. Jean in Bridgewater, you're on WNYC. You're doctor, right?
Jean: Right. I'm very concerned that I try to watch your stuff on TV and ask people about, but my time watching TV-- And nobody seems to see anything on television that parallels or, in any way, that presents life under the corona effect. I've seen that this has the effect that people act as if there's nothing going on out there. I don't know in the city how it is, but in most suburban areas, they just-- I'll just give you an example. A house appraiser for the town came to my place and wanted to go in and go through the house. He had no certification of his vaccination. He had no certification of his last test. He didn't know what I was talking about.
When I kicked them out and called the town, they said, "Well, you could always never let him in."
Brian: Different places have different rules. In New York City, if you're hiring that person, I don't know if you were technically the employer, you're supposed to check if somebody who works in your house is vaccinated now, but I guess they don't have that in New Jersey. It's an interesting concern, Jean. Are people reflecting what they see on TV, which is not much pandemic, in their own lives as a result? Deborah in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Deborah.
Deborah: Hi, Brian, how are you?
Brian: Good. What you got?
Deborah: I'm a camera operator in film and television. I can tell you that I have been living in time travel. I'm either going deep into the past or deep into the future, provided it's not a dystopian future. I kind of want to escape from what we've got. I tried to do that with Station Eleven on HBO, but the first episode is the setup for the rest of the series and it takes place with a rapidly spreading pandemic. In the middle of watching the first episode, I got a text from my friends that I spent Christmas Eve with. We had followed every CDC protocol. We're all in the business. We all tested. We all did the right thing, and he had a positive honest PCR.
I stopped watching Station Eleven right then and there. I'm like, "I'll come back to it. It was a wonderful book, but I can't deal with it right now."
Brian: I hear you. Thank you, Deborah. Erin in Bloomfield, you're on WNYC. Hi, Erin.
Erin: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me. I guess most of the television I've been watching doesn't really include anything about COVID with the exception of interest like that, which you mentioned. I think initially, I prefer the escapism, but I found that the way that they included it and then decided that the pandemic had ended makes me feel a little almost jealous of the characters.
Brian: Yes, especially-- Well, I get it. I'm just going to take that and go to the next caller. I wonder how many others of you experienced that jealousy of people on TV, but said in the present not having to deal with COVID. Ray in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ray.
Ray: Hi, Brian. I'm a huge fan and first time caller. Thank you for welcoming me. I work on the primetime animated series, Family Guy. I don't write for the show. I'm an animation artist, but it's an interesting dilemma for us because at the time so many shows that the pandemic started, I think nobody had a sense of how long this would go on and it wasn't being written into the show for fear that it would be out of date by the time the show went on the air which, of course, was not the case. Now that we're so many, over almost two years into the pandemic, how do you write your way out of the problem that you are now enmeshed in an alternative reality without COVID?
I feel for the showrunners on all shows with a long reasons back how to dig themselves out of this mess, even if they really want to be in the moment.
Brian: Totally. Thank you, Ray. Please call us again. All of you who are first time callers on that, please call us again. Yes, Ray has got a point. There was a moment last summer when people thought it was really ending, and TV does have a production timeline and a lag. There you go. Thanks for all your calls. Thanks especially to Juliana Fonda at the audio controls today, essential and continuing to come in to the office when many people are not.
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