B&B wraps production on first new episode since coronavirus shutdown

B&B wraps production on first new episode since coronavirus shutdown

The Bold and the Beautiful is once again producing new episodes of the series. The CBS soap's plans hit a speed bump just a day after its initial attempt to restart production when the lab it had hired was producing false positive results on COVID-19 tests.

This article has been modified from its original posting to include updated production information. You can read the original article here.

The Bold and the Beautiful got back to business on Wednesday, a week after the show's initial attempt to resume production hit a temporary snag.

Bell-Phillip Television, the production company behind The Bold and the Beautiful, has now revealed the reason that the show had to pause production: the testing lab overseeing its mandated COVID-19 tests "produced several false positive" results during its on-site testing.

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"The Health Department had some additional questions about the lab TV City provided The Bold and the Beautiful with last week, which produced several false positives," a B&B spokesperson explained. "Bell-Phillip Television changed labs and resolved all problems."

To be clear, the B&B rep reiterates, "We have not had, nor do we have, any positive COVID-19 cases and are not 'shut down.'"

After nearly three months of a forced hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, The Bold and the Beautiful became the first US television series to resume production last week. After what the show called a "successful first day back at work," B&B paused production the next day and issued a statement that the show needed to "modify [its] testing protocol."

Today's statement clarified why the show had to unexpectedly hit the brakes and shot down Internet rumors that attempted to "explain" why things had suddenly stopped.

B&B plans to resume production -- which was originally expected to be today -- tomorrow, Wednesday, June 24.

UPDATE (July 2, 2020): The Bold and the Beautiful has put the finishing touches on its first new episode in more than three months. B&B Supervising Producer Casey Kasprzyk shared the news on Twitter. With one episode down, you might be wondering when new episodes will start making their way to your TV screen. That, as indicated by large question marks in Kasprzyk's photo, remains unknown at this time.

Since B&B has returned to production, the three other daytime drama series have also announced their plans to get back to business. The Young and the Restless, which was to resume on July 6, has picked July 13 as its first day back to work. ABC's General Hospital is eyeing a mid-July start date, and Days of our Lives will hang tight until September 1 before returning to production.

What do you think about B&B's need to pause production? Are you glad that the soap has worked out the problems it encountered? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.

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