Paramount Network pulled two episodes of its troubled “Heathers” series Sunday, one day after a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue left 11 people dead. The two episodes that had been scheduled to air included a school-shooting-related storyline.
The decision to yank the episodes disrupted the chronology of the series, which Paramount has been been airing in a binge style over the course of a week. The season finale, which had been previously edited to remove a storyline about a school being blown up, is still set to air Monday night on Paramount Network.
“Heathers” has had a tortuous path to the screen. Initially developed for TV Land before moving over to fellow Viacom cabler Paramount Network, the show was meant to serve as one of the early launch pads for the latter after it was rebranded from Spike. The show — a high-school drama loosely based on the feature film of the same name — was then pushed from its original March 7 launch date in the wake of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida in February. It was scheduled to premiere on July 10, but after another school shooting that killed 10 people at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, in May, Paramount Network decided to pull the show indefinitely.
Paramount Network went on to pick the show back up after no U.S. buyer could be found. It premiered Oct. 25, with the network airing two episodes per night.
The two episodes pulled from Sunday night’s linear schedule will still be available via VOD.