Production on The Flash season 7 won't go ahead until a conflict over COVID testing is resolved by crew unions in Vancouver, where the show shoots. The long-running show is one of the most popular to ever run on the CW, and has proven as big, if not more so, than Arrow, where series star Grant Gustin made his debut as Barry Allen. The ambitious DC show is now the center of the Arrowverse, following the finale of Arrow earlier this year, and season 7 is set up to be one of the most exciting yet, after season 6 was cut short due to the pandemic.
The show saw improved ratings for season 6, due in part to the massive Arrowverse crossover event, Crisis On Infinite Earths, which was an ambitious storyline told across a number of shows, including Supergirl, Batwoman, The Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow. It also featured cameos from a number of different versions of each superhero, including Ezra Miller's DCEU Flash, Brandon Routh's Superman and Tom Welling's Clark Kent from Smallville. The Flash episode took place exactly halfway through season 6 of the show, and meant that the second half of the season saw Allen and the rest of the team dealing with the fallout from the event. The season ends with Team Flash planning to head into the Mirrorverse.
However, Deadline reports that The Flash is one of the shows that will be affected by the current COVID testing dispute playing out in Vancouver. The show is one of many Arrowverse productions to shoot in the Canadian city, where crew unions are currently fighting with Hollywood unions over testing requirements. Due to the city's low rate of transmission, local crew members are balking at the Hollywood union requirements to have crew tested every week. As a result, the dispute has seen a number of productions, including The Good Doctor shut down. Additionally, all of the DC shows that shoot in the city will not be able to begin filming until the dispute is resolved.
It's a strange new twist in the saga of the coronavirus pandemic, given that most productions are being delayed because more coronavirus testing is being done to keep crews safe. However, the crew union in Vancouver believes that requiring the same stringent testing that Hollywood does is unnecessary, given that the pandemic has largely been controlled in Canada, especially when compared to California, which has struggled through two major waves of the pandemic.
Hopefully the impasse can be resolved, given that The Flash season 7 premiere is set to debut in January 2021, and time is running out to meet that deadline. It also raises concerns about the quality of the show. If the production is forced to contract their filming schedule to meet demand, it runs the risk of rushing production and perhaps reducing the overall quality of the show, something that fans don't deserve after seven years. There is no end in sight for the dispute, but once it is resolved, the expectation is that filming can go ahead as scheduled.
Source: Deadline