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PAUSE: RIVERDALE, A MILLION LITTLE THINGS & Other Shows Suspend Production in Vancouver Because of Delayed COVID-19 Test Results

Updated with more details about shows affected.

Riverdale has hit pause on filming of season 5 in Vancouver because of delays in Covid-19 test results for cast and crew. Production is suspended from Wednesday through Friday.

Batwoman reportedly hit pause too, but I haven’t confirmed when or for how long.

Supergirl and The Flash are said to be pushing back their start dates. Supergirl was scheduled to begin filming season 6 (without star Melissa Benoist who is on maternity leave) on Monday, September 28th and The Flash planned to start filming season 7 on  Thursday, October 1st.

Legends of Tomorrow, Superman & Lois and Kung Fu’s October start dates may be pushed as well if a solution isn’t found for the backlog of tests (All of these CW shows are produced by Warner Bros. Television).

Nancy Drew, which started production on season two today, is also thought to be pausing.

Charmed, which is scheduled to start filming season 3 on Wednesday with a shoot in Gastown, may be paused too. (Nancy Drew and Charmed are produced by CBS TV Studios).

Maid, a Warner Bros. Television series for Netflix, paused filming in Victoria from Wednesday through Thursday because of delayed testing results, but expects to resume Friday.

Over at Disney, ABC’s A Million Liittle Things and Big Sky paused production today and Wednesday.

A Million Little Things cancelled Wednesday’s planned shoot in  Yaletown.

Big Sky shut down today and Wednesday but expects to resume production late this week.

There were some delays in test results, so out of caution we shut down [Tuesday and Wednesday] . We expect to resume production either [Thursday] or Friday. — showrunner David E. Kelley told a virtual Television Critics Association press conference on Wednesday.

Other productions affected are said to include Disney +’s The Mighty Ducks and Turner & Hooch and Hulu’s The Mysterious Benedict Society.

The standard for large American series is testing of cast and crew three times a week.

How big are the productions?

Supernatural’s cast and crew of around 360 people were tested three times a week while filming the show’s final two episodes this summer.

About twenty big American shows have started filming in Vancouver since Supernatural in mid-August so that’s a lot of testing, but the testing bottleneck is considered more of a pause than a shutdown.

Lifelabs, with locations all over B.C.,  is the only certified lab to conduct the tests and with BC students returning to school and a rise in cases in the province there are backlogs.

It’s important to note that no Covid-19 cases have been reported on any film or TV production in B,C. since production restarted with dozens of TV movies and the final season of Van Helsing in late June;  followed by Family Law (Canadian series), When Calls the Heart and The Astronauts in July;, Midnight Mass, final episodes of Supernatural, Virgin River, The Mysterious Benedict Society, A Million Little Things, Big Sky and Another Life in August; and The Mighty Ducks, The Good Doctor, Batwoman, Netflix’s Sandra Bullock movie, Lost in Space, Resident Alien, Riverdale, Home Before Dark, Day of the Dead, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, Turner & Hooch and Maid in September.

 

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