NBC’s crime thriller The Blacklist is one of many programmes whose production has run headlong into the brick wall of the coronavirus outbreak. The 19th episode of the show’s seventh season, titled “The Kazanjian Brothers,” was partway through filming in New York when the industry ground to a halt.
Rather than resume filming at some indeterminate point in the future, the showrunners have opted to complete the episode by creating animated versions of the scenes which had not filmed. The cast, including leads James Spader and Megan Boone, recorded their dialogue for the scenes remotely, and the editors and animators are likewise working from home.
The studio which produces The Blacklist, Sony Pictures Television, is taking a similar approach to One Day At A Time, another of the shows interrupted by the coronavirus, by creating a one-off animated special. Given the amount of productions which find themselves in the same boat, it’s entirely possible we will see more shows using animation in order to keep production going.
Uniquely among the various arms of the television and film industries, animation hasn’t been hit particularly hard by the epidemic – most productions have simply moved to working remotely, as The Blacklist has done now, acting opposite each other via videoconferencing rather than in person.
“The Kazanjian Brothers” will air May 15 as the finale of The Blacklist‘s seventh season, which was originally slated to run for 22 episodes. This will mark the show’s 151st episode, and it has already has been recommissioned for an eighth season.
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