09-10-2017, 10:44 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-10-2017, 10:45 AM by FaceInTheCrowd.)
Shooting for the first episode of a season typically began in the first week of August for an end of October airdate, so three months from start of shoot to airdate, give or take a week. By the end of the season, that lead time would be down to about two months (a typical shoot was eight days long and they aired seven days apart). Mid-season hiatus and occasional preemptions probably helped a lot for delivering episodes on time.
I don't know how far in advance of shooting the scripts were locked. They could have been revising them through the cast read-throughs right up to first the day of shooting. I do know that I never saw last-minute rewrites being distributed during shoots, which was unusual compared to other productions I've been on. Most of the shooting scripts I saw had no changes marked on them other than scene cross-offs, which I think means that every script had an extra scene or two that they would shoot if they had time and decide whether or not to use later, or if time was short would just not shoot.
I don't know how far in advance of shooting the scripts were locked. They could have been revising them through the cast read-throughs right up to first the day of shooting. I do know that I never saw last-minute rewrites being distributed during shoots, which was unusual compared to other productions I've been on. Most of the shooting scripts I saw had no changes marked on them other than scene cross-offs, which I think means that every script had an extra scene or two that they would shoot if they had time and decide whether or not to use later, or if time was short would just not shoot.