\n\tEven if everything were going smoothly in the world, the scenes recently of a tsunami rolling across the Pacific to Hawaii and then to the West Coast of the U.S. would have been unnerving.<\/p>\n
\n\tAfter all, to the many of us who watched Paradise, Hulu and ABC\u2019s smash hit this year, that is exactly how the world ends \u2014 or, at least, nearly all of the world that doesn\u2019t manage to escape to the tech-enabled mountain city where Sterling K. Brown is guarding a president. Watching the show this spring we, already drenched in general fears of climate change, were suddenly thinking about an extremely specific event that had not occurred to most of us before. And now, that event was rolling across our news screens.<\/p>\n
\n\tTelevision and reality have been colliding in improbable ways these past few months. The big Emmy contenders always have a socially relevant show here or there, but has there ever been a torrent like this one?<\/p>\n
\n\tEnvironmental catastrophe, toxic masculinity (Adolescence), presidential overreach (Andor), health care costs (The Pitt<\/a>), mass shootings (The Pitt again), income disparity (The White Lotus<\/a>), AI job displacement (The Studio, and maybe Severance<\/a>, if that is what in the name of Sam Altman it\u2019s doing) \u2014 worries that have already overwhelmed social media are now everywhere we look in entertainment as well.<\/p>\n \n\tThese are jittery times, and scripted television has responded with an unusually jittery set of offerings. This is what happens when you cross the upmarket TV boom of the past two decades with social worries worse than any point in a half-century.<\/p>\n \n\tThe White Lotus star Carrie Coon, who starred in maybe the most topical of them all, as a restless lawyer watching all of these disparities at a Thai resort, captured the moment well.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWelcome to late-stage capitalism,\u201d she says sharply when I ask her about the matter. \u201cIt\u2019s crushing everybody. And art is reflecting life and helping us consider it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tShe continues: \u201cAI as an existential threat, the tragedy of Medicaid, the demonization of immigrants \u2014 it\u2019s the responsibility of entertainment to present real-life issues, even if it sometimes has to be delivered with laughter. But when we see a theme or a trend in our art, we would do well to pay attention.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRising health-care costs are never far from many of our minds \u2014 the millions of people soon to be kicked off Medicaid but also plenty of us who thought, naively, that the well-insured would never need to worry. And so it goes on The Pitt, where Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) pleads for more resources from hospital administrator Gloria Underwood.<\/p>\n \n\tBig Tech machinations come right to the fore of Severance and its Lumon headquarters. We have no idea what murky business they\u2019re doing over there, but then, do we have a much better sense of what Google and OpenAI are doing? These are not abstract concerns in real life, and now television is making them even more intimate.<\/p>\n \n\tMaybe that\u2019s why one of the signature shows of the season is Bill Lawrence\u2019s Shrinking \u2014 an entire series dedicated to anxiety. And the most fitting moment on that show came when Luke Tennie\u2019s Sean, a veteran struggling with PTSD, seems at risk of letting his anxieties overwhelm him. Harrison Ford\u2019s grizzled therapist Paul looks at Sean and wisely advises him, \u201cSay, \u2018Bring it on. I love pain.\u2019 And then finally, the cloud will spit you out into the light, feeling like you\u2019ve conquered something.\u201d He may as well have been talking directly to us.<\/p>\n \n\tWhether these shows predicted or just channeled real-life concerns in a way matters less than the effect they have. Television is now a place where we go to see our anxieties mirrored back to us.<\/p>\n \n\tAnd, sometimes, to seek a path out of the mess.<\/p>\n \n\tAfter all, in Andor, a rebel alliance pushes back against an emperor. In White Lotus, a one-percenter spends the season skulking around in a haze as he slowly realizes he\u2019ll pay for his crime. In Adolescence, toxic masculinity is literally jailed and put on trial.<\/p>\n \n\tPerhaps no moment this season felt more cathartic than on The Studio, when Ice Cube yells \u201cFuck AI\u201d to cheers of a Comic-Con crowd upon the realization that a corporate executive is about to use the technology to put human laborers out of jobs.<\/p>\n \n\tWhether his moment of protest would ultimately make a difference \u2014 whether any of the resistance laid out in these shows really dispatches the demon \u2014 was largely left unaddressed. Television this season wasn\u2019t trying to offer realistic solutions. It was just trying to give us a hug.<\/p>\n \n\tAnd when life is that worrisome, that may just be enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n