6 Ways Returning TV Shows Will Look And Feel Different In Pandemic Era

The ways your favorite TV shows move forward in the age of COVID may be a bit more subtle than you think.

Sure, we know and have seen how some returning shows are dealing with the real-world pandemic... or not. ABC's The Conners, for one, firmly set its new season in a mask-wearing world, as has fellow sitcom Superstore on NBC.

TV's No. 1 drama, This Is Us, with its Season 5 premiere affirmed that it was going all in on not just COVID but also Black Lives Matter — which should not be surprising, coming from an acclaimed series that trades heavily on keeping things real.

Having worked on the two-hour premiere from February until only recently, This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman said, "It's the longest I think I've ever worked on anything in my life... because we were making the decision to have COVID, as well as Black Lives Matter, woven into the show."

That decision to double down was "about just American life," he explained. "When I was sitting down and weighing the decision of what we were going to do... It felt almost irresponsible not to take on the moment," yet all the while focusing on "the human experience and not the political experience in anything."

But how will TV's dozens of other returning shows look, feel or play differently, due to the restrictions of filming amid a pandemic? Here are a few of the approaches TVLine has learned of....

While CBS' NCIS: New Orleans deals with the pandemic directly (and specifically via Loretta's experiences in the morgue), mothership NCIS will pretty much kick off Season 18 in a pre-COVID world, by way of a backwards time jump that sets the first few episodes during a gap in time from the middle of last season. As a result, it won't be until the episodes airing in January/February that Gibbs & Co. are living in a pandemic.

At least a couple of returning dramas will envision a world where the COVID-19 pandemic has already come (and lingered... and flared up... and lingered some more) and gone. That's the approach CBS' NCIS: Los Angeles is taking with Season 12. "We're playing it as if we're on the other side of this, yet it's certainly fresh in the minds of everyone," showrunner R. Scott Gemmill told TVLine. (For example, Callen's girlfriend Anna will be doing volunteer work with communities that were, past tense, hit hard by COVID.) "We had to make a decision one way or the other, and my feeling has always been that our show is sort of an hour of escapism," said the EP. "People want to see life the way they wish it was."

Similarly, ABC's The Good Doctor will tackle the pandemic head-on in the first two episodes of Season 4, before moving on to a brighter future. When that turnabout arrives, series lead Freddie Highmore will appear at the start of each episode, as himself, to explain to viewers that "this takes place in a post-COVID world — that this episode represents our hope for the future," says EP David Shore.

Episodes may be more prudent with guest stars, so as to limit the number of new people rotating on and off set. (Plus, with traveling being less willy-nilly of an affair, even bringing in out-of-town talent is an altogether different thing.) "You can't just have people jump on a plane from New York on Tuesday and show up on set [in Los Angeles] on Wednesday anymore," explained SEAL Team showrunner Spencer Hudnut. "That has impacted a bit the stories we're telling, and how we're going about telling them, for sure."

Given how COVID can be especially tough on older people, shows may take extra precautions with cast members and recurring guest stars of a certain age. NCIS: LA, for example, filmed Linda Hunt's scenes for the Nov. 8 season premiere at the actress' home, outside in her driveway! "We're doing everything we can to keep everyone safe, and Linda, you know, is a little extra-special in terms of how we have to look out for her," showrunner R. Scott Gemmill explained.

NCIS proper, meanwhile, doesn't expect to have Robert Wagner — who is a remarkably spry 90 (yes, 90) years old — back anytime soon as DiNozzo Sr. "With actors of that age, we're just waiting to see where COVID goes," said co-showrunner Frank Cardea. "But you could certainly see him in the latter part of the season." Similarly, the Conners kids won't hang out with their great grandma anytime soon since Estelle Parsons is in her 90s and it'd be too risky to have the veteran actress travel cross country and be in a group work environment.

One of the most commonly cited measures that shows are taking is the reduction of crowd scenes — or, the culling of crowds within scenes. Even back in May, The Rookie boss Alexi Hawley had to wonder of the future, "Can I do roll call scenes with 30 or 40 people in the [squad] room, with the doors closed and a drop ceiling?" (The answer: probably not!) At that same point in the pandemic, The Flash's Eric Wallace anticipated having to tweak his postponed season finale, once it rolls around in early Season 7. "In all of the Flash finales, we would have seen huge crowd scenes, but I think that all has to change," he said.

But worry not, Superstore's titular Cloud 9 won't go out of business due to a lack of customers. Though the NBC comedy has needed to limit the number of background extras, resulting in not as many visible shoppers, "We tried to find ways to make fewer people feel like more people," said EP Gabe Miller. "Some of that is [through] sound design, adding more crowd noise."

Law enforcement dramas that typically send teams out in pairs or trios may play things a bit safer, at least to start. On NCIS: LA, for example, "A lot of the agents will be working somewhat solo when they can, and that's just to afford us the safety procedures that we're trying to implement in order to keep everyone healthy," said Gemmill.

Heck, family life may even be a bit different if you look closely, such as on Disney Channel's Raven's Home. As star and EP Raven-Symoné told us, "A lot of the scenes are separate between the kids (played by Issac Ryan Brown, Navia Robinson, Sky Katz and Jason Maybaum) and the adults. It's very separate. We also stay distanced in scenes until we absolutely have to [get close]."

Many scripted TV shows, however, will ignore the pandemic completely, either because it'd be difficult to wedge it into an established timeline (as is the case with SEAL Team), but mostly because they prefer to be escapist fare.

"After much consideration, we decided not to incorporate the pandemic into Season 8," Mom showrunner and co-creator Gemma Baker told TVLine. "Hopefully, our audience will enjoy a break from the heaviness of COVID when they tune into our show."

Or, as in the case of fellow CBS sitcom The Neighborhood, it was decided to instead have the season premiere deal with the year's other hot topic — civil unrest in the wake of the George Floyd protests. "Initially we were wondering if we could figure out a way that we could address [the pandemic] without featuring COVID, through some sort of analog experience that the community would go through together," showrunner Jim Reynolds explained. "However, when the Black Lives Matter movement really took off, we knew that that was the issue that would be a more appropriate one for us to deal with."

Want more scoop on any of the above shows? Email InsideLine@tvline.com and your question may be answered via Matt's Inside Line.