The Super Bowl Shouldn’t Have Looked That Normal

variety.com:

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticAlmost a year after retreating inside from a deadly virus whose spread has only gotten monumentally worse since, I turned on the Super Bowl.

It might be weird to see a sports event as typically hyperbolic as the Super Bowl brought down to a simmer Amid Pandemic, I thought, but at least I’d have some new shade of background noise on as I put together my 80th puzzle of quarantine.The reality of the event was almost stranger than the strangeness I’d expected.

Instead of making obvious changes to reflect the fact that the entire country is in some version of lockdown while half a million people have died, the Super Bowl seemed to unfold basically the same as it would have in any other year.