When Covid-19 touched down in the U.S. last year, reality wasn’t safe from the virus’ grasp and neither was fiction. As frontline workers and medical personnel worked tirelessly to care for coronavirus victims and stop the spread, showrunners and executive producers behind TV’s most popular medical dramas thrust the pandemic into primetime.
Now a year into the historical health crisis that has killed more than 538,000 people nationwide, Deadline spoke with medical drama showrunners who reflect on the discussions that led to their coverage of the coronavirus, how they advanced a story that still has no end and where their shows will go from here.
“I have never written about something while we were in the midst of it, and certainly not in a way where I don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring,” said The Good Doctor executive producer/showrunner David Shore. “Frankly, that’s...
Now a year into the historical health crisis that has killed more than 538,000 people nationwide, Deadline spoke with medical drama showrunners who reflect on the discussions that led to their coverage of the coronavirus, how they advanced a story that still has no end and where their shows will go from here.
“I have never written about something while we were in the midst of it, and certainly not in a way where I don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring,” said The Good Doctor executive producer/showrunner David Shore. “Frankly, that’s...
- 3/20/2021
- by Alexandra Del Rosario
- Deadline Film + TV
Over 317 episodes, “Grey’s Anatomy” has tackled everything from mass shootings to plane crashes. But when the writers’ room for the ABC medical drama convened in June, showrunner Krista Vernoff posed a surprising hypothetical for Season 17: What if the show existed in a world without Covid-19?
“I think that people have fatigue of Covid, and I think they turn to our show for relief,” she told them over Zoom.
Then Vernoff challenged the room to change her mind: “Who wants to be brave and convince me that I’m wrong?”
Co-executive producer Lynne E. Litt went first, Vernoff recalled, and said, “’I think it’s the biggest medical story of our lifetimes.’” And then Litt pitched a story. Vernoff said she was also compelled by the doctors on the writing staff: Naser Alazari, who during the show’s hiatus had been working on the frontlines at a clinic, said that...
“I think that people have fatigue of Covid, and I think they turn to our show for relief,” she told them over Zoom.
Then Vernoff challenged the room to change her mind: “Who wants to be brave and convince me that I’m wrong?”
Co-executive producer Lynne E. Litt went first, Vernoff recalled, and said, “’I think it’s the biggest medical story of our lifetimes.’” And then Litt pitched a story. Vernoff said she was also compelled by the doctors on the writing staff: Naser Alazari, who during the show’s hiatus had been working on the frontlines at a clinic, said that...
- 10/1/2020
- by Kate Aurthur
- Variety Film + TV
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