S06.E01: When Did We Begin To Change?

[WendyCR72]

Airing on November 11, 2020:

The staff adjusts to the new normal of the pandemic. Dr. Choi, Dr. Lanik and April fight on the front lines. Dr. Halstead and Hannah face a troubling reality. Dr. Charles tries to clear the air with his daughter following recent developments.

[katycat74]

The doctors on this show continue to be the worst. God help anyone who lands in this hospital. Judgemental idiots. Only bright spots continue to be Dr. Charles and Crockett.

[LittleIggy]

April was in true sanctimonious form when she bit Ethan’s head off for expressing concern about her. 🙄 Why were the staff maskless in the non-COVID unit? The leukemia girl’s dad was maskless, too. I get wanting to see the actors’ faces, but it still bugged me. The lady losing her husband made me cry.

Crockett is still so hot! 😏

Edited November 12, 2020 by LittleIggy

[tinkerbell]

The choice is to watch news reports of the worst covid spike so far, OR a fictionalized version of the same.  I just couldn't watch this show after 15 minutes.

[rhys]

I'm tired of corona in my real life. I would rather have escapism tv.

[WendyCR72]

23 minutes ago, rhys said:

I'm tired of corona in my real life. I would rather have escapism tv.

The thing is, though, being a hospital drama, I don't see how this could have been avoided. And then factor in the actors' safety, and it makes it doubly unable to be ignored.

[cinsays]

11 hours ago, LittleIggy said:

April was in true sanctimonious form when she bit Ethan’s head off for expressing concern about her. 🙄 Why were the staff maskless in the non-COVID unit? The leukemia girl’s dad was maskless, too. I get wanting to see the actors’ faces, but it still bugged me. The lady losing her husband made me cry.

Crockett is still so hot! 😏

Yeah, the masklessness was a poor choice, a wasted opportunity to reinforce the need.  And, I was hoping we were done with Natalie, but I was wrong.  Hope we aren't going to see her and Crocket become a thing.

[Ohiopirate02]

2 hours ago, cinsays said:

Yeah, the masklessness was a poor choice, a wasted opportunity to reinforce the need.  And, I was hoping we were done with Natalie, but I was wrong.  Hope we aren't going to see her and Crocket become a thing.

They are so going to become a thing.  Is he living in the same hotel as Natalie?  Because, there is no need to show those two having a conversation about her staying in the special doctors' quarantine hospital if they are not going to bang at some point.

[Quark]

I thought this was a good episode.

[cameron]

Why would they even show the doctors not wearing masks along with visitors to the hospital; very reckless on their part.  A total disservice to the medical profession.

 

[preeya]

21 hours ago, LittleIggy said:

Why were the staff maskless in the non-COVID unit? The leukemia girl’s dad was maskless, too. I get wanting to see the actors’ faces, but it still bugged me.

This seems to be the norm on all the returning shows I've seen so far. And, yes it is annoying.

[dovegrey]

I thought Fire started at 8 for some reason and watched this because it was on. I was kind of hoping TV would help to normalize mask wearing, especially in my neck of the woods where masks are not worn, despite intense surges and rolling school closures every 4 weeks and big box stores shutting down because half the employees are positive and family members dying but people still refusing to wear masks, literally not even at funerals for the people who died from COVID... but, no, this was the worst example for mask wearing I could have imagined. Media portrayal does matter and does impact what real people do or don’t do. 

I wanted to break my TV at the end when each character took down their mask to say something like six words. I give three hour lectures five times a week and perform psychological assessments where enunciation matters and the mask stays on. But coworkers routinely do what these idiot TV doctors did and take them off to talk. JFC. I want to see them portray surgeons doing surgery this way with constant mask shenanigans, because it would make as much sense.

I’d rather One Chicago exist in a magical non-COVID reality than get it this wrong. And I agree that I really don’t want to watch TV about it. 

And I also couldn’t get past Yaya’s attempt at pretending to be a provider during COVID. She’s always been bad but this was really bad acting. 

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. 

Edited November 13, 2020 by dovegrey
weird spacing issues

[spunky]

Natalie is already annoying and the season just started. She can’t decide if Crockett should be treating a patient or not because she’s trying to protect his feelings. I’m glad he checked her. However I feel like it won’t be long before they’re sleeping together. While I understand April’s stance, there was no need to eat Ethan’s head off. 

[Guildford]

And we are back and nothing has changed, they are still totally unlikeable.

So April is outside talking to the wife with her mask down around her chin, seems legit for someone working with the sickest of CoVid patients. Particularly chatting to such a high risk age group, passing items back and forth. She just doesn't not have the acting gravitas to play the sympathetic caring nurse. She does judgy condescending so much better.

Do they writer's google 'the rarest disease in the world' and then get our super doctors, who can't even cross the road without having a crisis but diagnose rare diseases with a look and wink. 

Gotta love Maggie's wig...that thing is huge and surely has its own pulse. In today's environment I am pretty sure medical & nursing staff are told to tie their hair back.

And what in holy hell is that fancy light room supposed to do? 

I feel this show is going to struggle the most trying to portray the reality of CoVid and I am not sure they should really try, they made it seem trite. The big 'someone from Med' gets CoVid hyperbole was even more meh than I thought possible. Dr Charles, who really serves no purpose other than to have an actor with some credibility on this show was absolutely fine, maybe they could've shown his struggle if they really wanted to ram the point home, or even killed him off.

But here we are on the rollercoaster of Med once again. Welcome back everyone.

 

[jabRI]

So April is outside talking to the wife with her mask down around her chin, seems legit for someone working with the sickest of CoVid patients. Particularly chatting to such a high risk age group, passing items back and forth. 

 

I thought the same thing! She could have had it off as she was walking towards her, but face to face 3 feet apart?? give me a break! come on people, this is hard, show us how to do it right.

[CoyoteBlue]

17 hours ago, Guildford said:

Do they writer's google 'the rarest disease in the world' and then get our super doctors, who can't even cross the road without having a crisis but diagnose rare diseases with a look and wink. 

Heh, actually, I was thinking of auto-brewery disease myself. But mostly because of the literary irony coupled with his current relationship crisis almost required it.

[greyhorse]

On 11/12/2020 at 5:02 PM, cameron said:

Why would they even show the doctors not wearing masks along with visitors to the hospital; very reckless on their part.  A total disservice to the medical profession.

 

 

On 11/12/2020 at 6:50 PM, dovegrey said:

I’d rather One Chicago exist in a magical non-COVID reality than get it this wrong. And I agree that I really don’t want to watch TV about it. 

This.

Look, I get that the show isn't exactly following what we know by now to be proper mask etiquette, how we're supposed to deal with Covid, social distancing, etc.  But this is a medical tv show.  One where, pre-Covid, we would see the surgeons scrubbing without wearing masks and then somehow having them when they were in the operating room.  Yes, in a real ER, the dad of the leukemia girl would be wearing a mask, the hospital staff giving the little tribute on the roof would know they don't remove their masks to speak somebody's name, that a guy dying of Covid wouldn't be dying in the ER but would be up in the ICU and would have been given remdesivir and steroids, etc.  It's a TV show!  Would we be happy if all the characters were wearing masks at all times except to eat?  No, that's silly.  The show isn't paying these pretty people to be wearing a mask all the time.

I think one thing that might be helpful would be if before the show ran, they just ran some text like "We understand the importance of wearing a mask and socially distancing.  The events depicted in this fictional drama are for entertainment purposes.  Please follow proper Covid protocols and stay safe."

[WendyCR72]

2 hours ago, greyhorse said:

I think one thing that might be helpful would be if before the show ran, they just ran some text like "We understand the importance of wearing a mask and socially distancing.  The events depicted in this fictional drama are for entertainment purposes.  Please follow proper Covid protocols and stay safe."

That would be a slippery slope on its own. Because fake world or not, if people see actors disregarding masks, entertainment or not, it will just reinforce...let's just say, the difficulties...surrounding masks right now.

And on that note? Let's go back to show content rather than the behind the scenes issues. Thank you!

[AnnA]

Apparently, I'm in the minority because I liked this episode.  It had its flaws but overall I enjoyed it.   

[Sake614]

I’ve said this on other boards but I’ll say it here as well. I watch TV to escape real life. I understand this is a medical drama (or at least it thinks it is) but like everyone else, I’m being inundated with COVID news every day. I don’t want it in my FICTIONAL tv shows.

now onto the show itself. I had no idea what was wrong with the ‘drunk’ patient but even I knew she wasn’t drunk. I figured maybe it was a reaction to some medication or a combination of meds. But Maggie was just soooooo sure. Like not a shadowy of a doubt in her mind. And because she knows all, she was going to ruin this poor woman’s life by calling the FAA to report that an employee was hammered.  Then, after talking to Sharon via zoom, will decides ‘maybe I should check one other thing first’ and voila! He finds out what’s really wrong and has to apologize.

Natalie unilaterally deciding not to let Crocket know about the little girl because he might be too close to the situation? When did that ever stop HER from getting involved? And who made her the arbiter of right from wrong? Glad he called her on it.

the situation with Dr. Charles kind of hit home for me. I have a friend who contracted COVID and then brought it home to his father. It appeared that his dad would recover but then he developed pneumonia snd blood clots on his lungs. He died a week after being admitted to the hospital. 😫. It’s also my biggest fear because I don’t know what I would do if I gave it to my mom.

as others have said, if they’re going to depict COVID on the show they need to do it right. April taking off her mask and sitting so close to the wife was insanely irresponsible. She’d just come from the COVID unit where this woman’s husband is dying. The LAST thing she should be doing is having a face-to-face conversation with someone who isn’t currently infected! But of course we’re supposed to believe April is just the most awesome, caring, wonderful nurse ever to nurse...🙄

I still don’t know why I keep watching this show. It just gets worse every year.

[tvfanatic13]

They did auto brewery disease last season on one of the other medical shows (Resident, Greys or Good Doctor- yes I watch too much tv) so I knew what it was right away. 

[memememe76]

I gotta say that I preferred the more Covid related storylines over the non-Covid storylines. I totally get how such plots can trigger audience members but scenes like the final scene also provided me with an outlet to release certain emotions I have had over these long months. Also, the actress playing the wife was very very good. 

[Court]

Can we kill April off please? I hate her so much. She's more entitled and arrogant than stupid Natalie

 

[Court]

How the hell does Natalie still have a job??? 

[CoyoteBlue]

1 hour ago, Court said:

Can we kill April off please? I hate her so much. She's more entitled and arrogant than stupid Natalie

But only April truly knows how to minister to the COVID-sick! What would Chicago do without her?

(And it looks like it will get worse next episode.)

[limecoke]

I’ve watched most of the post-COVID medical shows and this one annoyed me less than I thought it would. April is still a ridiculous character, Manning still bugs and Will is still...well...Will.  However compared to how Grey’s handled COVID, this one was a masterpiece.  

I was wondering about the masklessness too but presumably the magic light disinfecting rooms they kept going into rendered them free of the virus.  At least in Hollywood fiction-land.

April maskless while sitting next to a member of the public defies explanation.  Since we’re meant to believe April is a perfect person who does no wrong and is smarter than all medical doctors in Chicago, we give her a pass.👀