The attacks that occurred in Paris over the weekend were devastating to the country of France, but the high death toll and the insidious nature of the attacks have affected people around the globe, as well. With that in mind, TV stations have already started pulling episodes of TV with violent intent, and this week ITV announced that the fourth episode of the new drama Jekyll and Hyde has been postponed.
TV Producer Charlie Higson broke the news online yesterday:
New episodes of Jekyll and Hyde air on Sunday nights at 7 p.m. on ITV. The November 15 episode unfortunately did not happen and has been postponed for a future date. According to RadioTimes, the episode was expected to include firearms, and due to violence, the network opted to pull the show from the airwaves. The period drama follows the grandson of the original Dr. Henry Jekyll, who has developed the same split personality traits of his grandfather. It's set in the 1930s.
While the episode doesn’t seem to have featured terrorism and a lot of shows—at least here in America—include gunfights, this isn’t the first time UK fans have complained about the series and its “scary” nature, so the network may have dropped the new episode to cut off any complaints before they could be pieced together.
TV networks will frequently pull sensitive content if it correlates with violence or a disaster in any way. In the past we’ve seen similar responses to 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing and other similar violent events. In fact, in the US, tonight’s episodes of Supergirl and NCIS: Los Angeles have been replaced with episodes from later this season because both had terrorism and bomb-related plots that may have negatively affected viewers. And while other markedly violent shows, like Walking Dead, etc. did proceed as usual this weekend, that show’s zombie-oriented fantasy plot doesn’t particularly correlate with what happened in real time over the weekend in France.
It’s hard to tell if the gunfight would have been that rough to get through or if ITV is simply being extremely sensitive. Still, pulling violent episodes in the wake of any tragedy is not an unusual move for a TV network. As should be the case with Jekyll and Hyde, a postponed or pulled episode can always air at a later date. We’ll let you know as soon as the ITV drama gets back on track.
In the meantime, you can check out the 10 greatest banned TV episodes, here.
