Originally posted Tuesday, March 24, 2020 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, AMC has been unable to finish post-production on “The Walking Dead” season 10 finale so it’s going to air later this year.
The 15th episode airing April 5 will be the final episode instead. The show had scheduled 16 episodes for season 10, split by eight in the fall, eight more in February through April.
The show typically goes all out for a shocking or big finale episode. The actors have already done their part, with production wrapped late last year out of Senoia.
But given the drama’s high quotient of zombies and gore, “The Walking Dead” takes a lot of intricate post-production work to make the killings look realistic. With post-production companies shut down the past two weeks, the type of work necessary to finish this episode could not be done properly from equipment in employees’ basements.
The network has already posptponed a spinoff series, "Walking Dead: World Beyond," which was scheduled to premiere after the finale April 12. Later episodes of that series, shot in Virginia and focused on teens, have also not been completed in post production.
“The Walking Dead,” which once drew 20 million viewers, now brings in closer to 5 to 6 million, which still makes it AMC’s most popular show and one of the top shows in the cable universe. (Streaming services don’t provide apples-to-apples ratings.)
It will be back season 11 but production, which was set to start soon, has been delayed. The show typically returns in October but that will likely be pushed back depending how long production remains shut down.
There is some irony to all this considering the entire series is premised on a virus that turns everybody into zombies after they die unless a living human pierces their brain. (A heart stab won’t do it.)
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