The delay to The Walking Dead season 10 finale will also hold up the run’s release on Netflix. Episode 16, ominously titled “A Certain Doom,” should have aired on AMC on Sunday, April 12th, but it was pulled from the schedules when the lockdown kicked into effect. Though filming had wrapped earlier this year, quarantine is preventing post-production from being completed and right now, it’s impossible to release it amidst the current global pandemic.
What this means is that season 10 as a whole won’t be able to be streamed on Netflix for a long while yet. Previous seasons have always arrived on the service five months following the original airing of the finale. Season 8 arrived on Netflix on September 24th, 2018, after the season wrapped on AMC back in mid-April. Likewise, season 9 dropped on September 1st, 2019, just as it had concluded on the network on March 31st.
What’s more, Netflix typically makes the previous season available just in time for the premiere of the next run. Season 8 arrived two weeks before season 9 kicked off on October 7th, 2018 and season 9 went up on the site just over a month before season 10 premiered last October 6th. Clearly, though, this standard practice can’t continue this time around. Not just because of the finale’s delay, but also because shooting on season 11 has been held off indefinitely as well.
As star Jeffrey Dean Morgan put it, it’s a mystery when season 11 will both get going and premiere on AMC. There’s little chance of it debuting this October, for sure, and even later in 2020 would be a bit of stretch. The CW is officially holding off all its major original programming until early 2021, so it’s possible that AMC could follow suit with The Walking Dead. Assuming that the season 10 finale is able to air sometime this summer, though, the latest run could feasibly be up on Netflix by the end of this year – likely in November or December.