The Good Fight and Evil executive producers Michelle and Robert King take a darkly comedic look at the COVID-19 pandemic, with the new Spectrum Original streaming series The Bite.
The six-episode show imagines a new strain of COVID turns people into the undead, and what it does to an already locked-down group of New Yorkers.
The show was shot remotely “right at the height” of the real-life pandemic last year, star Steven Pasquale tells ABC Audio, adding “we had some pretty insane COVID protocols.”
He explains, “Audra McDonald and I play husband and wife. And in order to avoid anyone to be exposed to anyone else…she plays a person who’s having an affair at work with her real life husband [The Greatest Showman‘s Will Swenson]. And I play a guy who’s having an affair at work with my real life wife [Hamilton‘s Phillipa Soo]. So that’s how we were able to avoid any exposure, which was really smart and funny.”
The pandemic unfolds as many of the characters are on Zoom with each other — and at least one character is done in when a friend’s warning of “Behind you!” is lost to that pesky Mute button.
Shooting a show about a fictitious pandemic while a real one was taking place was interesting, to say the least, says Pasquale, who plays a CDC doctor. “Well…we many times thought, ‘God, the only thing more insane than not just this pandemic, but how it’s being handled is if it were zombies,” he says with a laugh.
Pasquale explains that the dark comedy series is meant to “bring a little levity” to the seriousness of the pandemic.
The entire series, which also stars Taylor Schilling and Leslie Uggams, is now available on Spectrum On Demand.
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