Zombie Drama Latest COVID-19 Casualty

The season finale of The Walking Dead has become the latest casualty of COVID-19.

TVNZ 2 would have screened it on April 13 but the 10th season will now close on April 6.

“Current events have unfortunately made it impossible to complete post-production of The Walking Dead Season 10 finale, so the current season will end with its 15th episode on April 5,” AMC said in a statement of its US scheduling (it screens here within hours of AMC).

“The planned finale will appear as a special episode later in the year.”

Reports Variety:

This is not the first time the Walking Dead universe has been impacted by the ongoing global pandemic. It was previously announced that the new series Walking Dead: World Beyond would no longer bow on April 12 as originally planned. Like the mothership show’s finale, no specific airdate for that series premiere has been set beyond that it will air later this year.

TVNZ 2’s schedule also has been hit by Aussie soap Home and Away stopping production and its own Shortland Street cutting back its output.

The last episode of Home and Away will screen 5.30 tonight. In the short term, it will be replaced by repeats of Young Sheldon from season 1; Splitting Up Together will replace the weekday repeats, and movies will screen instead of the weekend omnibus edition from April 5, starting with Love on the Slopes.

Young Sheldon re-runs also will replace the 5.30 Friday repeat of The Simpsons, which was scheduled when Home and Away first was cut back to four days a week. And the 2.35pm double-episode repeats of Cougar Town will reduce to single eps from Friday.

Off-peak changes to Shortland Street following the soap’s Monday-to-Wednesday cutback will include overnight repeats of Happy Endings, afternoon re-runs of America’s Funniest Home Videos, and Sunday morning re-runs of Young & Hungry.

As of this week, Shortland Street will not air Thursdays or Fridays at 7.00. Repeats of Motorway Patrol will screen Thursdays and TVNZ 2’s Friday night movie will get a half-hour head start on Three’s, with re-runs of Best Foods Comedy Gala 2019 following it on Friday and April 3, and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown thereafter.

“This scheduling change allows the cast and crew some buffer room in their delivery of the show to TVNZ,” the broadcaster says.

It also prioritises everyone’s safety and wellbeing. This move is in line with productions around the world who are making small changes to ensure they can keep their shows on air, even if filming needs to stop temporarily.

This already has happened with the likes of Coronation Street, Emmerdale and EastEnders in the UK.

As of tonight’s episode, Coronation Street will be cut back in length from one hour to half-an-hour from Wednesday-Friday; subsequent programmes will be moved up half-an-hour, with a repeat of Emmerdale’s daytime broadcast added post-midnight.

TVNZ 1 made the decision when ITV announced it was cutting weekly production from six half-hours to three.

“We are making the change a week earlier so as to have a buffer in case delivery is compromised even further,” the broadcaster said on Friday.

Since then, ITV has completely halted production and slashed £100 million from its production budgets.

In another major change to TVNZ 1’s schedule, over the new two weeks new episodes of Fair Go (7.30 Mondays) will be replaced by re-runs of the show’s 40th anniversary specials.