We’re all living this collective nightmare together, and when we come out of it, we’ll go on with the new normal together. It’s the same for TV shows.
Most of them, however, won’t have to deal with the coronavirus. It wouldn’t make sense for them to. I can’t even imagine an episode with The Flash or Supergirl having to deal with the virus – one that they can’t actually fix – and there are shows like Outlander or Peaky Blinders that are set far enough in the past that they just can’t touch the subject.
9-1-1 is not such show. In fact, 9-1-1 is the kind of show that, if we’re being honest, kinda has to deal with it, if they want to remain, well …believable. And they know it.
“I feel like you have to address it,” showrunner Tim Minear told TVLine, adding that, even though no episodes have been written yet for the fourth season of the already renewed FOX show, and though the show is not set to come back till 2021, when they do come back “the characters on the screen will have gone through what the audience has gone through.”
Of course, the show isn’t picking up in real time, and they won’t be telling those stories in real time, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be dealing with them.
“There may be flashbacks that will show what our people went through at the height of the [pandemic], but by the time we resume physical production, that means the world will have figured out how to start opening for business again.”
Which, of course, gives the show a role that not many others will have – or can have – one that the people behind it are very aware of.
“Maybe our role is to demonstrate through our little fantasy show that life will go on.”
If we’re being honest, we can’t wait to see this on our screens.
9-1-1 will return to FOX in 2021.