Adam Lenhardt
Senior HTF Member
I agree. The massive musical number when Zoey returned to work ("Hello, Dolly!") with everybody on the fourth floor involved in the choreography felt like the show was making an announcement: We're not going to let this pandemic strangle our ambitions or fundamentally change what makes the show work.Well, the season premiere certainly moved along both Zoey's professional and personal lives. Fine season premiere.
For a show like "This Is Us", where every scene is so specific to a time and place in the characters' lives, writing in COVID-19 was unavoidable. But I'm glad that "Zoey" has chosen to ignore it; this a show that already exists in a heightened reality, and its theme of human connection is very counter to the limitations imposed by the pandemic. There's also the fact that we'll (hopefully) have a vaccine widely available soon, and once the pandemic is behind us, having a season centered around it would really date the show whereas now it feels somewhat timeless.
Given that the scheduling impacts of the pandemic apparently meant that they only had Lauren Graham for one episode this season instead of seven, I'm glad they really utilized her in this episode. And even though Joan is transferring to Singapore, she's still with the company so they have avenues to bring her back for future seasons if the scheduling gods will it.
George is supposed to be a lot, but he might be too much for me. I'll have to wait and see on that one.
Zoey's sister-in-law struggling with motherhood really humanized her; she was a bit of an ice queen in the first season.
In other news, ratings were up for the season premiere.