It’s been three months since the second half of Virgin River Season 5 gave us one of the most comforting holiday episodes on television ever! Okay, except for the fact that the residents of the seemingly quiet and peaceful Northern California town still had their fair share of drama on Christmas Day: Charmaine finally gave birth after five seasons, Mel and Jack may have tension over Charmaine’s secret, and Mel finally met her biological father… who is hiding something.
All in all, Season 6 looks like it will have even more drama to shake up Virgin River’s cozy idyll. What’s more, fans of Netflix’s most cozy series should definitely be excited, as a new update suggests that filming on the new season has finally begun! Except there’s a twist: it should have started much earlier, so don’t expect the release of Virgin River Season 6 anytime soon.
Rejoice, Folks! The Filming Has Finally Begun
Now that the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes are over and the entertainment industry is back on its feet, the Virgin River production team is back to work. The script is completed and filming for Season 6 has finally begun.
Originally, according to What’s on Netflix, filming was supposed to take place between February 2, 2024 and May 17, 2024. While we were incredibly excited to hear this back in January, we were still concerned that due to the delays associated with past strikes (without in any way diminishing the contribution to the fight for workers’ rights in the industry), the new season of Virgin River will not be released anytime soon. Unfortunately, that’s still the case, but let’s rejoice for a while, because filming has begun, albeit later than planned.
This was revealed by the personal Instagram account of Martin Henderson, who plays Jack in the series. On February 22, he published a remarkable post with himself and Alexandra Breckenridge in Vancouver, officially announcing the start of filming.
Breckenridge told Deadline in 2023.
The inability of the production team to meet the aforementioned shooting schedule was speculated by Deadline as early as February 1, with the weather conditions in British Columbia, and Vancouver in particular, cited as the main reason. And now it looks like the weather will indeed allow for a full-fledged filming to take place.
Additionally, the delay may have been due to concurrent work on a yet untitled prequel spin-off that is in active development. The decision to expand the Virgin River universe in this way seems highly questionable given Netflix’s less-than-successful spin-offs, but we’ll just have to wait for the release to see if it was worth the holdup.
Either way, we look forward to more fascinating details from the social media accounts of the cast and crew members!
There’s a Catch, However
It usually takes about 7 to 10 months from shooting to post-production (which, unlike the VFX-heavy series, doesn’t involve much editing). Season 4 premiered almost 8 months after shooting wrapped, and Season 5 aired 10 months after its shooting. The new season is going to be shorter than the last ones, containing 10 episodes, like the first three seasons, so it could have been expected in November or December 2024. However, the update suggests otherwise.
With filming started barely a week ago, it’s conceivable that Season 6 could be scheduled for the summer of 2025, similar to when Seasons 3 and 4 were released.
