Western Morning News (Saturday)
Am I suffering from compassion fatigue?
TURN the clock back two years and a TV drama set during a deadly pandemic would have us on the edge of our seats.
But despite eagerly anticipating the return of one of my favourite dramas – Grey’s Anatomy – knowing it would be reflecting Covid-stricken America, I was hugely disappointed by the first double bill on Wednesday evening.
I’m not sure if it’s compassion fatigue or a desire to escape from the torrid reality of life in a pandemic, but the US hospital-based soap isn’t delivering its usual fix of easy-watching, if totally implausible, TV drama.
It’s not the subject matter as such. The writers are doing a great job of reflecting the reality and horror of the pandemic, particularly as it affects doctors and other hospital staff fighting to save their patients.
Central character Meredith Grey is in charge of the Covid patients, and is devastated to be losing so many, and that they are dying alone. “Who died?” asks another doctor. “Everyone,” snaps Meredith.
And it’s not the actors’ acquisition of heavy PPE that changes our perception of the characters. In fact the best of the new storyline surrounds frustration at the lack of equipment while the actors have only their eyes to express emotion otherwise concealed by face masks. But somehow it is hard to be convinced by the cast, usually so mesmerising, as they carry out life-or-death surgeries.
Of course, like all good dramas, Grey’s takes a while to set the scene at the start of a new season and we know there will be twists to come. But, so far, it seems to have lost the plot by sticking so rigidly to reality however horrific that actually is.
Even though it was made long before the current Covid crisis, the 2011 film Contagion comes much closer to the current crisis and predicted what might happen with amazing accuracy. It’s said that Health Secretary Matt Hancock even used the film as inspiration in adopting the UK’s hugely successful mass vaccination programme. If only the movie had included more guidance on how to staff emergency departments and manage the economy during a pandemic.
With A-listers Kate Winslett and Gwyneth Paltrow both falling victim to the virus, the film has viewers hooked from the opening scene right through to the, mercifully, uplifting ending. Having not watched the film until last year, I was nervous about seeing the world being wiped out by a pandemic. But the film manages to maintain the drama without killing everyone.
Perhaps the makers of Grey’s Anatomy are concerned about the inevitable criticism of exploiting the thousands of deaths suffered in America during the pandemic for the sake of a network drama.
They might also have taken heed from the early criticism of Songbird, the first feature filmed in Los Angeles since the US quarantine, which has sparked criticism as being a “tone-deaf horror movie”.
Songbird, directed by Adam
Mason and produced by Michael Bay – also director of disaster hits Pearl Harbor and Armageddon – is a love story terrifyingly set against America’s 214th week of lockdown in 2024, as a late-stage version of ‘Covid-23’ mutates and starts to infect people’s brains.
I can’t write any more about the film because I haven’t actually seen it. I am too sensitive to nightmares to watch a movie that takes the current pandemic into 2024 and makes it so deadly it wipes out half the population. There’s just too much truth and reality in the storyline to let me park it quietly with my cocoa before heading to bed.
I guess it was inevitable that a realtime hospital drama like Grey’s Anatomy would set its latest season around the pandemic. It was even more obvious that Hollywood would use Covid to create a disaster blockbuster. But, given the choice, I’d rather stick to news reports to tell me what’s going on in the world of Covid-19. Please could films and TV dramas stick with being reassuringly unrealistic.
So far, it seems to have lost the plot by sticking rigidly to reality however horrific that is