I got to wondering how medical drama will or won’t include the new reality of the current pandemic in their shows?
There are obvious plot lines to use about Corona expose/patients/ventilator shortage and so forth, but won’t those make most of the ‘normal’ type medical dramas seem…sorta irrelevant? Yeah, your patient has a mysterious rash? Thousands of people are dying every day, so give them a prescription for some lotion, tell them to try not to scratch, and tell them to stay the hell away from the hospital!
With all the nurses and doctors worrying about catching the disease and the shortage of PPE, how much canoodling in the supply rooms is going to be going on?
Are all the formerly bearded male actors going to have to change to a clean shaven look?
For that matter, is your entire cast going to be wearing face masks 90% of the time?
Or do they simply ignore the whole thing? Is St. Amsterdam located in an alternate reality version of NYC, and life just goes on as normal?
Well, the show New Amsterdam did have an episode titled “Pandemic” that was supposed to have aired last week but they pulled it on account of it being a leetle too topical given the current situation. They’ll play it sometime I’m sure and we’ll be able to compare/contrast with reality.
I’ve been watching various tv shows to see which one’s going to be the first to really address the issue but I’m thinking the reality is too stark and too prolonged to be effectively handled in a drama situation. You’d have to have at least one entire season that reflects contagion procedures on a daily basis and it’s hard to act from behind a mask, especially when you’re talking patients AND doctors AND outside of an OR. Dramatically speaking, it would kinda suck–pretty much the way it sucks IRL.
Medical dramas (along with police, law, fire, etc. dramas) concentrate on the personal lives of the staff and patients. They’ll spend plenty of time on the overload conditions, but they’ll also show a lot of what’s happening outside the hospital at people’s homes. It will be tricky to find the situations where anybody isn’t wearing a mask outside of their homes. Probably a good time for a lot of flashbacks. But they do plenty of surgical scenes dramas where everyone is masked, it’s the setup that is difficult, they can’t stand around prepping and chatting without masks on.
The difficulty is that most shows aren’t filming new episodes right now, because the cast and crew are all staying home. And by the time they are filming again, it won’t be topical any more.
The difficulty is that most shows aren’t filming new episodes right now, because the cast and crew are all staying home. And by the time they are filming again, it won’t be topical any more.
My guess is that the medical dramas are going to ignore the real situation, partly because it’s a little too real and depressing. We watch these things partly as an escape from reality.
That was good of them, though I’m surprised they had actual, working equipment. I would have guessed it was all mock ups or outdated/broken stuff salvaged.
I expect most of it was. Even if it started off as real equipment, a lot of that stuff is only meant to be used once. Not a big deal if you just need something that looks right, but the hospitals aren’t going to want used masks.
Still, they probably had some usable stuff, and they weren’t using it right now anyway, why not donate it?