Monday, March 30, 2020

Coronavirus TV Predictions

I wasn’t entirely sure if I wanted to do this post if only because it might seem insensitive. But I decided that I might as well do this anyways since enough has gone on and changed already that I might as well predict what might be different as a result. First, I might as well explain what’s changed already.

Some shows like The Resident and FBI have ended their seasons early due to not being able to film the rest of what they wanted to. New Amsterdam won’t air a pandemic based episode anymore which could cause some issues with continuity as they were introducing Daniel Dae Kim to the show now with that episode. (Ironically, Daniel tested positive for the virus after filming what was supposed to be a made-up version of a pandemic.) Will that episode ever air in the future? I don’t know. Other shows were delayed with their filming and might not be able to air more of their seasons until when they can go back to when they can film stuff. We might get the rest of seasons much later or perhaps some seasons will be combined in a way or changed in ways that they wouldn't have before.

Somehow, the pilot process was most affected by this thus far. I thought that was more in February and I don’t know just how much of it as I would like. If I had to guess, new shows will still get made in the next season, but there will be a whole lot less of them than usual and you might not see most of them until midseason. I have no idea just how many have already been filmed, so we might see a whole new sort of shows than we normally see as a result.

In addition to less new shows, there will probably be a lot less cancellations as a result of what is going on with this pandemic. There will be cancellations for sure and not even stuff that isn’t already certain or announced. But a lot of what normally would have been cancelled won’t be this time around.

Depending on how long this whole thing lasts, it could be quite a while before new episodes start airing of what isn’t already filmed. So how will networks make up for this deficient? I think that they might have to import more shows from cable offshoots or their streaming services to air as if they are new for the first time despite limited availability before. CBS might air a lot of their all access shows on TV in the stead of the new shows that they normally would have aired. NBC might do the same with Peacock. It will be hard to know what will happen with all the shows since they’ll have to air something and they don’t like to air reruns as much anymore.

It will be hard to tell how much this will affect television and for how long. The writer’s strike was the last major event to have changed TV a whole lot and it was good as Canadian shows aired. I won’t know for sure what all can and would air in the place of what we would normally see or how long shows might be messed up as a result.


That’s all I can think of for adding to this post. I won’t be back on Mondays for a while and this will be the last of what you will be seeing on Mondays unless I just randomly roll a Survivor episode here. But the Tuesday updates should remain in the near future for quite a while and I hope that it doesn’t get messed up in any way like it was last time. I’ll see you tomorrow with another new post.

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