To Covid or Not to Covid

With the lethargic return of television (not all shows have returned, those that have came late and will have shortened seasons, there are a minimal number of new shows) comes an essential question.  The comedies, specifically the Chuck Lorre ones, are avoiding Covid, well, like the plague.  In these escapist shows the pandemic isn't even a bad dream.  It simply doesn't exist.  People don't wear masks, they eat out at crowded restaurants, life is ... good.  On the other side you have "Station 19" and "Grey's Anatomy".  Not only do their formats make ignoring the pandemic difficult but Shondaland never met a crisis it didn't embrace.  Doctors are wiped out, emotionally drained, sick of watching people die and just sick.  People are lonely and struggling with the isolation and those who ignore Covid do so at their risk.  To be honest I'm not sure which end of the spectrum I want to watch.  A world without the disease is nice to imagine but often feels very fake right now.  The inauthenticity grates.  On the other hand the daily headlines depress me so much that I don't really want to watch it on my dramas.  That being said both sides of the spectrum are doing their work well and I'm just going back and forth trying to balance my moods.  There is a nice middle ground.  "A Million Little Things" is placing itself just before the pandemic, presumably so they can jump forward when it is all over.  "Chicago Fire" and "All Rise" acknowledge the disease but it is more of the periphery rather than at the core of their stories.  These shows seem to be the most satisfying to me right now.  I get my entertainment but it is grounded in the world I'm living in.  All of this just points out how weird everything is, but just look at where we are living.

I wish I could say there are bright spots in new offerings.  There aren't many.  Chuck Lorre's "B Positive" is okay rather than brilliant.  "Nurses" and "Devils" looked lame and "Big Sky" is so offensive I didn't even bother watching it.  ("Big Sky" chooses to focus on the soap opera pain of pretty little blonde girls instead of the real pain faced by Native American women in the place where it is set).

More will come in January but a larger question looms.  Covid has fundamentally changed TV watching habits.  The streaming revolution was accelerated and the ratings for network shows, across the board, are sluggish at best.  When you hear about great new series now, absolutely none of them are on the big four (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox).  Having just ditched my free one year subscription to Disney+ and being basically unwilling to pay for half a dozen streaming services I will be sticking to my cable picks for now.  And books.  I guess this is where I say "pick your poison".