The Young and the Restless has been preparing for a July 6 production start but as we know with the COVID-19 pandemic, this stuff is very much in flux and keeps changing daily. So while Y&R was hoping to get started on July 6, the new tentative production start date has been pushed to the following week on July 13. The postponement comes amid a spike of COVID-19 cases, test positivity, and hospitalization rates in California that led to Gov. Gavin Newsom tightening restrictions yesterday, including shutting down indoor dining and movie theaters.
There wasn’t a solid reason provided as to why the start of production was pushed because I’m honestly not sure why an extra week would make a difference. Maybe they’d like to test their cast and crew after the holiday weekend and see where they stand before going into a full production start the following week. The Bold and the Beautiful, which is produced by the same people at Y&R, is still shooting new episodes and has been doing so for about a week. They did push their initial start by a few days to make sure they had better testing measures and safety protocols on set and that all began last week with production running smoothly according to reports. Another Los Angeles based soap, ABC’s General Hospital, is also still on schedule for a mid-July return and has no plans as of now to postpone it.
The Young and the Restless, which is coming off an Outstanding Drama Daytime Emmy win last week, The Bold and the Beautiful and General Hospital suspended production in mid-March amid an industrywide production shutdown due to the pandemic. The Bold and the Beautiful and Y&R ran out of original episodes at the end of April while General Hospital ran new episodes until mid- May before airing repeats curated into theme weeks.
The Young and the Restless, now in its 47th season, was renewed for four more years back in January by CBS.
