The team on CBS’s “Scorpion” is taking on one of its biggest jobs ever: saving Election Day.
The episode, airing Monday night, will see the team band together when an unknown force tries to rig the presidential election.
To accomplish this story, the executive producers told CNN they aimed to keep all aspects of the episode — including its candidates — rooted in fiction because it was “important to us that we not choose any side in the presidential race,” executive producer Nick Santora told CNN via email.
“We invented a fictional presidential race with candidates that bear no resemblance to the reality,” Santora said. “We also steered into a story that does not concern the benefit of one candidate over the other … This episode really couldn’t be further from the present day election.”
Americans head to the polls on November 8 to cast their votes in what has been a heated race for the White House between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
In the latter weeks of the campaign, Trump has been vocal about his belief that the election is “rigged” and made accusations of voter fraud.
For the purposes of fiction, executive producer Nicholas Wootton said they chose to pursue this theme for the episode because “the intersection of complex problem solving and every day life is the bread and butter of our show.”
“Unforseen circumstances rising from technology is something our characters often tackle,” he said.
They’re not worried about the episode being perceived as anything more than scripted storytelling, Wootton said.
“Our story is so completely different from anything that is in the news, it’s not a concern,” he said. “We are a purely fictional show whose sole purpose is to provide family entertainment.”
Santora also teased that the appearance of election rigging in the episode might lead the team to discover a foe with a different goal.
CNN has an exclusive sneak peek of the episode:
“Scorpion” airs Mondays on CBS.
