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‘General Hospital’ Switches To Four Original Episodes A Week Amid Coronavirus Production Shutdown

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ABC’s daytime drama General Hospital will begin airing repeat episodes on Fridays beginning this week, April 3 through May 22, amid the continuing coronavirus-related production halt.

New original episodes will continue to air Monday through Thursday as originally planned, the network said today. Each “Flashback Friday” episode will feature an introduction from a General Hospital actor highlighting the episode. This Friday’s introduction will be made by Laura Wright.

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The network has a limited number of new episodes in the can and is beginning to stagger them to assure that they will have four originals per week through May 22. If production does not resume by then, which will likely be the case, the daytime soap will have to switch to all reruns.

The first “Flashback Friday” episode airing on Friday April 3, was the show’s Special 56th Anniversary Show episode which aired on Tuesday April 3, 2019. Per the network’s description the episode, which airs two days after the show’s 57th anniversary, is “a loving tribute to the hospital’s past, present and future, providing a pivotal moment for some of Port Charles’ most memorable characters.”

General Hospital is both the longest-running American soap opera currently in production and the longest-running scripted television drama currently in production. The show has won the Emmy for Outstanding Daytime Drama a record 13 times.

Other daytime dramas, NBC’s Days Of Our Lives, CBS’ The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful, also are under production shutdowns. Days should be able to go through a lengthy production shutdown without its run on NBC getting interrupted — the network currently has episodes in the can to air through October. The Young and the Restless and Bold had about 4-6 weeks worth of episodes in the can as of March 17, the date both series shut down production.

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