Covid on camera: how TV shows have incorporated the pandemic on-screen

Too soon? Some TV shows have already released episodes with COVID-19 storylines

Today's expression: Skirt the issue
Explore more: Lesson #342
March 1, 2021:

It was only a matter of time before the pandemic made its way into pop culture, and some TV shows have already started airing COVID-19 inspired storylines. But is it too soon? This lesson evaluates three popular TV shows that incorporated the coronavirus into their latest seasons. Plus, learn what it means to “skirt the issue.”

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Covid on camera: how three TV shows are handling the coronavirus on screen

Lesson summary

Hi there, welcome to Plain English lesson number 342. I’m Jeff; JR is the producer; and the full lesson is available at PlainEnglish.com/342.

On today’s lesson: how Covid is starting to appear on the small screen. I gave myself a homework assignment this week: I watched three TV episodes that portrayed events in 2020. On today’s lesson, we’ll talk about how the producers are handling Covid in their shows. The shows I watched were Grey’s Anatomy, Law & Order SVU, and Superstore. We have an expression, like always. Today that is “to skirt the issue.” And we have a quote of the week.

Covid as reflected on 3 TV shows

Twenty-twenty was a year unlike any other: almost the entire world experienced unprecedented lockdowns mid-year and, later, many people adopted visible new habits, including wearing face masks and keeping a distance from others. Unlike other large events like natural disasters, wars, or political crises, this was a highly visible disruption to daily life and it lasted—it’s still lasting—for over a year.

So it stands to reason that the coronavirus would start to be reflected in pop culture. But how, exactly, and when? Many movies aren’t pegged to a specific date. Unless current events are part of the story, you could easily assume a mask-less story was taking place in 2018 or 2019. A typical action movie, romantic comedy, cartoon, or fantasy movie could easily shift one year forward or back without any disruption to the storyline; the producers could release a movie in 2020 or 2021 and easily skirt the issue of the pandemic. The same is true for books and stories. Music is generally about timeless themes—love, adversity, and emotions—and wouldn’t necessarily talk about what’s going on in the world. Music and cinema as art forms will, eventually, grapple with the pandemic in their own way. But they have the luxury of time.

Audiences are, I think, exhausted of the virus, and they turn to movies, music and TV to escape from it. Movies being released now were, by and large , produced pre-COVID. However, you cannot plausibly write a television show that takes place in 2020 without showing the effects of the pandemic. That puts TV producers in an awkward spot: how should they portray 2020 on screen?

To see how producers are answering that question, I watched three shows that take place in 2020, and each did it a different way. I watched Grey’s Anatomy, Law & Order Special Victims Unit, and Superstore.

Grey’s Anatomy is a hospital show, and hospitals are ground-zero for the coronavirus pandemic. Out of the three shows I watched, this one confronts the virus head-on: a central part of the story is the illness, and death, of a character’s mother, and the difficulties that causes in her family. We see her father trying to talk to his dying wife via an iPad. We see the doctor struggle with running the hospital, on the one hand, and worrying about and caring for her family on the other.

The show also nods to the stress doctors felt working endless shifts, the frustrations they felt seeing people refuse to wear masks, and the sadness and helplessness they felt with the suffering and death all around them. Producers mixed in the new reality of health care, too, including telehealth appointments and enhanced personal protective equipment for doctors. Most of the dialogue was behind masks. When anyone was speaking without a mask, it was in a situation where a person would not need to wear a mask—sitting six feet apart on a park bench, for example.

Thankfully, I have not been in a hospital since the pandemic started. But of the three shows, this one feels like it was the most realistic portrayal of the virus. Then again, the virus was the central theme of the show, so they had to get it right.

Next up for me was Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Full disclosure, I love SVU. It’s a police procedural drama. I watch it occasionally, but I haven’t seen any of the current season. Although the show famously claims that any resemblance to actual events is mere coincidence, this is obviously untrue: the show rips events from the headlines. And the episode I saw was clearly from 2020; it reflected an actual event in Central Park.

The virus played a supporting role in this episode. Of the three shows I watched, this was the least realistic portrayal of life in 2020. Characters had masks, but often spoke without them. They put masks on at illogical times. In one scene, people were standing close to each other speaking without masks on. When they split up, they all put their masks back on—the opposite of what you would expect.

Detectives used a suspect’s mask to take a DNA sample. A detective wasn’t allowed to ride in an ambulance because of Covid restrictions. But that was about it. It was as if the producers simply acknowledged the virus, but didn’t want to make it part of the story. I found it to be unrealistic—but exactly what I wanted. I wanted to see characters’ facial expressions when they spoke. I didn’t need the characters to be acting precisely as they do in real life—it is, after all, a story about something else. I give this one good marks.

Finally, I watched one episode of Superstore, a show I had never seen before. It’s about the employees at a big-box store called Cloud 9. Workers at stores like this were also on the front lines of the virus. There was no way to work around the virus here, so the show’s creators did the opposite. It was an assault on the senses, almost like a lightning round of virus-related challenges. Here, in no particular order, are themes this 20-minute episode explored: shortages of toilet paper, improvised masks, looting, advice for proper hand-washing, news about Tom Hanks getting the virus, people guessing about when things would go back to normal, Zoom fatigue , awkward Zoom meetings, murder hornets, a customer refusing to wear a mask, and the store not getting clear guidance from their corporate headquarters on what to do.

Years in the future, if people watch this episode, they may have fun recognizing the many aspects of the pandemic that the show mentions. But I found it to be way too much. I would have preferred an episode about a few of these things, rather than a single episode that tried to cram the entire experience into just 20 minutes.

What do you want to see on screen?

Overall I would have to say I was pleased with what I saw. The producers of all the shows were able to capture sound even though the actors had masks on. Law & Order showed that you can incorporate the virus without letting it dominate the show. I would hope that future shows would take this same approach. As a viewer, I was happy to sacrifice a little believability for the sake of the story and seeing actors’ faces.

What have you seen? Have you seen new shows that ignore the virus completely? Any where the virus is too much? What do you want to see as a viewer? Let us know in our Facebook group at PlainEnglish.com/Facebook .

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Expression: Skirt the issue