Sunday Long Read: Stranger Than Fiction

Our Sunday Long Read this week comes to us from Vulture, where multiple TV writers and showrunner legends ranging from Norman Lear to Tina Fey to Christopher Lloyd give us the plots for how their characters would handle the coronavirus and lockdown.

Archie Bunker would prefer you stand six miles from him. Sawyer from Lost will probably face criminal charges for hoarding and reselling precious items. Elmo is playing musical chairs with his parents. The coronavirus hasn’t seeped into the shows we’re all bingeing to pass the time — and it won’t for a while since the industry is shut down — but how would TV’s most beloved characters navigate social distancing in these dark days? 

We posed that question to dozens of showrunners, creators, and writers; 37 of them responded with scene scripts, monologues, and episode outlines, including a hilarious Skype session between Frasier and Niles, a classic locker-room speech from Coach Taylor, an excerpt from Selina Meyer’s biography, and a vlog for Rogelio De La Vega’s biggest fans. We even learned what caused the whole pandemic — you can blame it on Veep’s Mike McLintock.

Some of these are really hysterical, some down-to-earth, and some are just weird.  But it's nice change of pace from the usual fare these days, and it's good for what ails you.