This past January saw the highly-anticipated return of the cult classic comedy series Childrens Hospital with the Netflix sequel series Medical Police, which saw the return of doctors Lola Spratt (Erinn Hayes) and Owen Maestro (Rob Huebel) racing against time to stop the spread of a world-threatening virus. Three months ago, it was a perfectly harmless narrative thread fitting of a medical show, but with the recent global outbreak of the coronavirus, it’s taken on a new context for viewers and ComingSoon.net got the opportunity to ask co-creator and star Rob Corddry his thoughts on its now timely nature.
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Whilst talking with the Primetime Emmy winner on his upcoming dramedy Bad Therapy, we asked about his thoughts on the now all-too-relevant storyline and its comedic parallels with the current global situation and Corddry found the situation to be “wild” and “eerie,” especially as viewers have taken to social media with their own notions about the show.
“The strangest thing is that people, and when I say people I mean the tiniest, craziest corner of the internet, have come up with all of these conspiracy theories that we knew this was all coming a year and a half, two years ago and we planned this for promotion sake,” Corddry said. “No shit, people have gone so far as to freeze frame different sections and read COVID on the graffiti on the wall.”
In looking back at the development of the story, the 49-year-old comedian notes that “there are tons of virus stories out there” and that it wasn’t “a huge leap” for him and the writing team to determine that would be the threat, but did find that the odd part of the story is “the 3D printer aspect of it.”
“The show’s been out long enough, I’m not going to worry about spoiling anything,” Corddry laughed, “but a lot of the plot revolves around the virus having been created and dispersed by a 3D printer. So it’s a man-made virus and it’s really funny reading all of these articles about people calling to arms that if you have a good 3D printer, please start printing these materials and they’re like the smallest sort of nodules and bolts and things for stuff that medical staffs out there really need. That’s what shocked me the most that 3D printing was even mentioned in the conversation.”
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Co-created by Corddry, Krister Johnson (A Futile and Stupid Gesture), Jonathan Stern (Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later) and David Wain (Role Models), the series follows Spratt and Maestro as they discover a world-threatening virus and are recruited as government agents in a globe-spanning race to find a cure while also unmasking a deep conspiracy during the outbreak.
In addition to Hayes and Heubel reprising their roles from the acclaimed Adult Swim series, Medical Police sees the return of Malin Åkerman as Valerie Flame, Corddry as Blake Downs, Lake Bell as Cat Black and Ken Marino as Glenn Richie, with Randall Park (Always Be My Maybe) and Fred Melamed (Dragged Across Concrete) playing new characters after guest starring on the original series.
Medical Police, which debuted to rave reviews from critics in January, is currently available for streaming on Netflix. Bad Therapy is set to hit digital platforms on Friday!
