A TV Show Set Up a Fake Campus Protest. Then Real Protesters Arrived.

Small polyester tents — orange, green, blue — stretched across the grassy quad. Makeshift wooden signs and banners dotted the encampment. Sleeping bags and coolers were scattered on the ground.

The scene resembled one that cropped up across the United States this past spring, when pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up camp at dozens of colleges and universities. But the encampment at Queens College on Tuesday was a case of art imitating life. “F.B.I.: Most Wanted,” a police procedural drama that airs on CBS, had erected it for an upcoming episode involving a climate protest.

The episode will air during the show’s sixth season, capitalizing on a student movement that captured global attention, led to thousands of arrests and fueled debates over activism on American college campuses. The Hollywood version created on Tuesday was decidedly dystopian, featuring an explosion at a campus building and actors holed up in the rubble of the school’s dining hall.

Angered by what they saw as the trivialization of their movement, a small group of protesters organized by the pro-Palestinian groups Within Our Lifetime and Students for Justice in Palestine gathered on the Queens College quad a few feet away from the set. “They’re using our campus to film propaganda,” they chanted. The group numbered around 15 people, and it was unclear how many, if any, were students.

Queens College was not the site of its own encampment earlier this year. The school’s president, Frank Wu, closed numerous entrances to the campus during the protests, which may have deterred a camp from forming.