WB TV is drawing up plans for the upcoming TV season to work around minimized physical contact between actors, including reconceiving romance and fight scenes. Ideally for Superman and Lois this would mean a focus on adventure over fighting, but realistically Superman's gonna be using his heat vision on Mongul from six feet away.
Buh-bye
There is no way they can make a show that was supposed to be focused on a marriage and children “social distanced” without it drastically impacting the emotional impact of the show.
I hate to say this but Superman and Lois is better off being pushed a year or postponed.
They can’t build an audience for a new series based on Lois and Clark when the actors playing the roles can’t touch each other. There is no way this can work. An “action adventure” show without that element is going to tank. They are counting on Tyler and Elizabeth to make people invested in this show and now the two actors, who are supposed to be madly in love, can’t be within 6 feet of each other.
God I’m so sad about this.
Last edited by Nelliebly; 05-01-2020 at 10:31 PM.
Yeah, pretty much. I don't see how this would be even remotely possible if they were practicing actual advised social distancing and not some more risky abridged version (or just ignoring it completely, going heavy on the sanitizer, and just saying they're doing it). Are they supposed to not kiss or show affection as husband and wife? The kids are starting high school. How's that supposed to work? Several of the major beats in the pilot are focused around characters touching.
But this is dealing with and network's bottom line, and the cast and crew likely really wanna work on it (this could be the big moment for our two young stars), so I imagine if they're being told there's a work-around, then they'll take it that way.
For general safety in some pretty trying times (and, to a much lesser extent, the quality of the show) this doesn't sound like a good idea in the slightest.
"Mark my words! This drill will open a hole in the universe. And that hole will become a path for those that follow after us. The dreams of those who have fallen. The hopes of those who will follow. Those two sets of dreams weave together into a double helix, drilling a path towards tomorrow. THAT's Tengen Toppa! THAT'S Gurren Lagann! MY DRILL IS THE DRILL THAT CREATES THE HEAVENS!" - The Digger
We walk on the path to Secher Nbiw. Though hard fought, we walk the Golden Path.
Tyler and Elizabeth have become very close friends so I’m sure they will talk about what they are comfortable with. But...I agree with you. I don’t know how this can possibly work.
They would basically have to quarantine together to be able to be within 6 feet of each other which, obviously, is asking a lot of your actors and logistically impossible given Elizabeth has a 1 year old baby and a husband.
And it’s not just Lois and Clark that’s the issue (though that’s the biggest issue.). It’s the kids. They can’t portray loving parents if they can’t get within 6 feet of their children.
Last edited by Nelliebly; 05-01-2020 at 11:36 PM.
They should postpone.
I feel for Tyler and Elizabeth. I genuinely do. They both seem like extremely nice people, they were both thrilled about this show and they’ve become very good friends.
Tulloch has been dreaming of playing Lois Lane since she was like 20 years old. This absolutely sucks for them and I feel for them. Don’t know what else to say.
I hope they try and air the show with all the actors just on zoom reading from a script.
There are likely some work arounds or precautions that could be taken the allow for more or closer physical contact necessary to have shows where we’re supposed to see families and couples. There are rapid testing processes that are may be more widely available by the fall when production starts. Coupled with some measure of social distancing the cast, having them self isolate during shooting, and masking for the crew. It also depends on the extent of the spread come time to shoot.
I could also see some WB lawyers and insurers freaking the F’out over this right now.
But I mean, as ridiculous as it’d be for this show to have everyone standing 6 feet from each other all the time. There are plenty of other shows that simply wouldn’t be able to shoot like half their scenes under these type of restrictions. Fight scenes probably are a lot more feasible than half the dialogue scenes in the pilot script considering the villain was already wearing some kind of suit.
I kind of suspected it would have to be pushed back a bit but it looks more and more like this is going to be a 2021 premier instead. I wonder if there will be ANYTHING to show this fall. New shows that haven't premiered yet are one thing but shows that are already on the air have a bigger problem. What are they going to fill their timeslot with?
Assassinate Putin!
Tyler would basically have to move in with Elizabeth, David and the baby to make this work. I’m not saying it can’t be done. These two are so professional and, luckily, they are friends so I’m sure they will do whatever they have to do to be safe but they would literally have to commit to quarantining together or Tyler could pass something to Bitsie that she then passed to David or the baby and so on. Or vice versa. Tyler’s Father is an ER doctor who has been treating Covid patients. I assume and hope that Tyler has not been around his father because they’ve all been quarantined but it’s enough to give you a migraine.
I don’t know how you even address the kids. Alexander is a minor. He’s only 15. So he can’t leave his family to come quarantine with the cast.
My head hurts thinking about this.
I'm thinking unless there's daily testing before coming on set and kind of keeping the main cast within their own little extended bubble, maybe like keeping the casts of all the CW shows that shoot in Vancouver quarantined together Olympic Village style. They kind of live like that in Vancouver during the seasons to a certain extent already. So if you keep a small population like that more or less only interacting with each other and have the ability to do frequent and rapid testing, you may be able to relax some of the limitations safely in a few months. I think the testing side of the equation is the big question to whether or not any of this would be feasible. They are in Canada so the situation on the ground would be different than day-to-day in the US, but there are rapid result testing systems in use for front line first responders already that can give results in like 15 minutes. Whether that scales up to the point where it'd be available for use in something non-essential like television series is a different question. But the costs associated with acquiring and staffing that type of system could end up more attractive than shutting down filming for the next year or putting out oddly sterile shows.
And I mean, in a situation with a couple like Bitsie Tulloch and David Giuntoli, who both are on different television series, he'd be running into the same issues with the Million Little Things cast. A drama like that would be even more difficult to work around these restrictions. And with minors, I think their parent or guardian has to be on set anyways so they'd have to include them as well.
They could alleviate some of the issues with abbreviated seasons. Having a 10-12 episode first season wouldn't be the worst idea. Personally, I think most shows benefit from that anyways, and could make it more feasible to operate under a testing and quarantine system.
I really don't know how any of this is going to work. Apparently The Mandalorian was ahead of the curve putting it's main character in a full mask.
Last edited by Yoda; 05-02-2020 at 10:16 AM.
They should wait until they can do this new show really well. Otherwise, it screams they don't really care about the quality and that's awful for Superman.