One of the most frustrating TV delays caused by the global lockdown is the hold-up with the season 10 finale of The Walking Dead. AMC managed to air all but the last episode of the post-apocalyptic drama’s latest run before quarantine prevented post-production work from being completed on the concluding chapter, titled “A Certain Doom.”
Producer, and director of this particular episode, Greg Nicotero has now offered an update on the process behind getting the finale ready to broadcast that helps us understand the reason for the hold-up. Outlining how things usually work, he told EW:
“When you’re in post-production, it kind of goes like this,” Nicotero said. “You have to edit the episode, then you do sound effects, and then you do music, and then visual effects, and then color timing to make sure all the colors in all the scenes match, and then you have to do a quality check to make sure nothing is messed up. So there are all these steps that have to happen, and generally speaking, the way our production schedule works is those happen up to about three weeks before the episode airs.”
Apparently, filming on the episode wrapped back in November, so everything was almost all set before the pandemic brought the TV industry to a close.
“We were really on our way to the finish line when things started slowing down because of the stay at home work order,” Nicotero added. “So we just missed that window. It wasn’t that the effects were delayed or anything was delayed. It was just the delivery of the episode was set to be delivered at a specific date and we had to shut down before they hit that date.”
This delay is irritating, to be sure, but Nicotero promised that it will be worth the wait as the episode has lots of great stuff in store.
“It’s a really amazing episode,” he said. “I love the way episode 15 ends where you see Beta bringing the herd to the tower where everybody is holed up. There’s a lot teed up, so to speak.”
As he reminds us, “The Tower” ended on a big cliffhanger, as Beta sent his walker horde to surround the survivors’ hideaway, leaving them trapped. Promos, however, have promised that those who are outside the tower – such as Carol and Daryl – will come back to help. What’s more, Lauren Cohan is finally returning to the show as Maggie, so hopefully she’ll arrive just in the nick of time to aid her friends in their final battle with the Whisperers.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan has previously admitted that it’s anyone’s guess when the finale will air, or when shooting on season 11 will get going. It’s all up in the air right now, then, but rest assured that we’ve got some top-quality Walking Dead content coming our way eventually.
