By Rose Cohen ’22
Staff Writer
Remember the first few weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic? Maybe you grabbed a mask and trekked to your local grocery store, hoping to stock up on hand sanitizer and toilet paper. Perhaps you quarantined with a friend or significant other. In Freeform’s four-part series “Love in the Time of Corona,” which premiered on Aug. 22, an ensemble of characters attempt to find love and connection during the early days of the pandemic in Los Angeles.
According to a CNN interview with show creator Joanna Johnson, who is also the executive producer of Freeform’s drama “Good Trouble,” scenes were shot inside actors’ real-life homes in L.A., and a small crew sat outside in their own individual pod tents. They did everything wirelessly and let the actors take the cameras inside.
The filming process took approximately 15 days. According to CNN, Johnson said, “It felt like it was a highly professional student film in the sense that there were seven of us, maybe, on the crew. We were wearing multiple hats and everybody was giving 110 percent and we were just getting it made.”
“Love in the Time of Corona” attempts to portray how the beginning of quarantine affected four different households. Real-life couple Leslie Odom Jr. and Nicolette Robinson star as husband and wife in the show. Odom, who played Aaron Burr in “Hamilton,” plays James, a movie producer who was rarely home before the pandemic began. Robinson, who made her Broadway debut as pie baker Jenna in “Waitress,” takes on the role of Sade, a stay-at-home mom to the pair’s 3-year-old daughter. James and Sade are deciding whether quarantine serves as the perfect moment to have another child.
In the second household, we meet James’ elderly mom, Nanda (L. Scott Caldwell), who is attempting to celebrate her 50th anniversary with her husband (Charles Robinson) despite the fact that he lives in a nursing home. He appears to suffer from dementia, which Nanda wants to deny.
We also learn the story of Sarah and Paul (Rya Kihlstedt and Gil Bellows), a soon-to-be-divorced couple who were still living together at the beginning of the pandemic. In the show, the two are forced to hide their recent estrangement from their daughter, Sophie (Ava Bellows), a freshman at Sarah Lawrence College who returned home once quarantine began. Lastly, viewers encounter roommates and best friends Elle and Oscar (Rainey Qualley and Tommy Dorfman), who are hoping to find love during the pandemic, searching online and, later, closer to home.
Director Joanna Johnson told the Los Angeles Times that she didn’t want “Love in the Time of Corona” to be about the virus. “It’s really about the effects of quarantine on relationships that are old and new,” she said.
But Johnson’s statement seems puzzling. How can a show that’s set, written and filmed during the pandemic not be about COVID-19? Of course, Johnson has the liberty to create a series about how quarantine has impacted these different characters. Still, viewers only hear about the virus’ impact on the characters within their personal bubbles.
It will be easy to forget “Love in the Time of Corona.” The show fails to say much about how individuals experienced quarantine in the early days of the Coronavirus pandemic. A show set in the time of COVID-19 should instead address the feelings of loneliness and fear that many are still experiencing. Besides sharing the story of Nanda, who can’t visit her husband because of COVID-19, the show skips over many of the disastrous impacts of the pandemic. Many of the characters appear unaware that people around them are sick and dying.
The only reason to tune into this show is its talented cast, each of whom created a convincing storyline, even if they did fall short of reality. “Love in the Time of Corona” isn’t the most pandemic-encapsulating show, and leaves home that another will come along and better reflect the challenges faced during the early days of COVID-19.