We have yet to see exactly how Donald Trump’s election will impact television, but it’s already on the minds of TV showrunners like Josh Safran of ABC’s Quantico. “It’s been an interesting week because of course, none of us want to deal with terrorism at this moment when a lot of us feel potentially terrorized,” Safran told The Hollywood Reporter, regarding a recent episode that showed torture techniques. “Right now, it’s hard for me to make Quantico a show that terrorizes you in a time of terror, so the goal now is: How can we make the show representative of what the world could be as opposed to what it is? In times of happiness and prosperity and good will it’s okay to have a show that raises your blood pressure because you can turn it off and say, ‘But I’m okay.’ But in a time of despair and despondency, I definitely don’t want my blood pressure raised so high that I feel even more in a spiral when it’s over.”
Safran pointed to The West Wing as a model show because “it was nice to see this hopeful president during a time of less hope.” “With a cast as inclusive as Quantico, it represents America but not the America that has just been elected,” Safran said. And if the torture episode seemed prescient, Safran says there’s more of that to come from the episodes that are already locked, because there’s “a speech from a character where you would think we wrote it yesterday.” He went on, “We actually cut it from the show and then Wednesday morning, the producers and I ran to post and put it back in because we realized how important it was. That’s sad that it’s the case but it’s there.” Television dystopia: coming to a world near you!
