Of Course Netflix Found a Way to Produce New Content During Quarantine

Jenji Kohan Photo: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

As a famous dinosaur doctor once said, “Life finds a way.” The same goes for art: Despite the constrictions of quarantine, Netflix is still finding a way to develop new content for its literally captive audience. The streamer announced today that it has ordered an anthology series about social distancing — written, shot, and produced entirely within social distancing — called, you guessed it, Social Distancing. The series will be executive produced by the creative team behind Orange Is the New Black (which knows a thing or two about depicting confinement), including the show’s creator, Jenji Kohan. In a Notes-app statement shared on Netflix’s “See What’s Next” Twitter account, Social Distancing’s EPs explained that showrunner Hilary Weisman Graham “runs production from her living room,” and director Diego Velasco “directs our talent remotely.” Taking a cue from other quarantine writers’ rooms, these writers “never physically meet during the writing process.” The cast will be filming themselves in their homes. The anthology series promises to tell “stories about the current moment we are living through — the unique, personal, deeply human stories that illustrate how we are living apart, together.”

The announcement does not reveal who the cast is or when the series will premiere, but its premise of separate stories “some seismic, some mundane,” sounds like a split between Black Mirror and High Maintenance, so we’ll probably watch it. Not like we have anywhere to be.

Of Course Netflix Is Somehow Producing More TV in Quarantine