“I’m really hoping that when you watch it, you’ll never know”

Writer Michael Lucas is hoping viewers won’t be able to pick it, but Season 2 of Five Bedrooms underwent some key changes in production, in response to COVID restrictions.

Filming was disrupted when production around the country was halted in March 2020. At that stage two thirds of the season was in the can.

Four months later cast and crew re-grouped to complete the series but observing new rules.

“It’s surreal, because half the episodes were filmed, pre-COVID. So a character will walk out of one room, which was actually four months earlier, and then come into another. There were all sorts of cast restriction problems, and things we had to rewrite. I’m really hoping that when you watch it, you’ll never know,” Lucas told TV Tonight.

“The things you will notice are that in the first part of the series, there’s lots of bits where the five of them are in a car driving together. But post-COVID that was impossible. You’ll suddenly notice less driving scenes!

“There were also headcount caps. So in a show called Five Bedrooms we do a lot bedroom scenes and we couldn’t get that many crews into a bedroom. If you’re really canny, in the later part of the series you’ll think, ‘Hmm they’re having that conversation in a lounge room but isn’t that more a bedroom conversation?'”

The show again features Kat Stewart, Stephen Peacocke, Doris Younane, Roy Joseph and Katie Robertson plus Hugh Sheridan, Rodger Corser and Kate Jenkinson.

The series kicks off with the housemates purchasing a new property, which triggers new storylines by Lucas, who is also creator of ABC’s The Newsreader.

“It’s a new house which we use in story terms a lot, but it was also from necessity. The house that we were in last time got completely renovated. So we embrace that as we come into Season Two. They buy a house that has some challenges, which we milk!”

Filming is currently underway on Season 3.

Five Bedrooms is now screening on Paramount+.