Ebola Fighters is a Hit With Chinese Viewers

A big-budget drama about Chinese medical teams working in a fictitious West African country during the 2014 Ebola outbreak is a huge hit with viewers in China.  The first two episodes of “Ebola Fighters” drew 16 million viewers and was the fourth most-popular drama on television last week — a notable accomplishment in a media market as large as China’s.

Even though the show was filmed before the COVID-19 outbreak, the depiction of a deadly outbreak similar to what we’re all experiencing today apparently resonated with segments of the audience and may be part of the show’s appeal. “Closed doors, chaotic hospitals, and quarantined people,” one viewer wrote on Douban. “It recalls my darkest memories of the COVID-19 outbreak two years ago.”