General Hospital is bang in the middle of some really heated up storylines at the moment. From Sonny, Carly, Nina to Valentin, Anna, Laura, every character has something major going on. And oh! not to forget Spencer and Trina’s much awaited romantic rendezvous is painting the sky pink! However, the latest news reveal that GH is about to go dark for a week! the news is everywhere on social media. But what does that really mean? Will no episodes be aired, or just not new ones? Or is it something else? Well, we have the answer, keep reading to find out!
General Hospital is one of the longest running soap, and in fact, now ABC’s only surviving one. It airs new episodes five times a week. Between Monday and Friday. Which means the soap’s entire team, including cast and crew, have to shoot endless hours on a regular basis. Honestly, it must be exhausting. Moreover, considering that GH is not a limited series and will continue to air indefinitely, we can assume that most of the cast and crew do not really get much tie off. Especially the central characters and the core team.
Thus, the makers incorporate planned dark weeks in between the shooting schedules a few times every year. During the dark week, the entire General Hospital cast and crew gets an off. Which means no new episodes will be filmed during the week. Allowing the entire team to take down time. However, fans have nothing to fear. Just because new episodes won’t be filmed, that does not mean it will affect the telecast of the soap. New episodes will still go on-air as schedued.
Dark Week and Preempted General Hospital Episodes
General Hospital generally shoots several weeks in advance, so they always have a stock pile of episodes to depend on. Currently, according to several media reports, the production has already filmed episodes for well into mid November. Moreover, it is to be noted that several times every year many episodes get preempted to accommodate other events. Such as special news coverage, sports, etc. Interestingly, even this scheduled black week is coinciding with 3 days of preempted episodes to accommodate Major League Baseball.
So now, anytime you come across this phrase on the internet, there is no need to panic. Now you know what Dark Week means. Stay tuned to TV Season & Spoilers for more such General Hospital news and updates.