Tel-Chai Nation

Clearly, I haven't paid enough attention to the junk being aired today on commercial television, but NBC has been broadcasting quite a barrel scraping, and it's a good thing they're not airing the following episode from it:

LOS ANGELES (AP) - NBC said Friday that it's pulling an episode of its serial killer drama "Hannibal" out of sensitivity to recent violence, including the Boston bombings.

The episode that was to air next week features a character, played by guest star Molly Shannon, who brainwashes children to kill other children.

"Hannibal" executive producer Bryan Fuller asked NBC to pull the episode, citing the Newtown, Conn., school shooting in December and this week's Boston Marathon attack, NBC spokesman Stuart Levine said.

Fuller said Friday that he began talking with NBC executives several weeks ago about keeping the episode off the air. His concern was prompted by Newtown and reinforced by Monday's violence, he said. [...]

"Hannibal" stars Mads Mikkelsen as the title character, the brilliant cannibalistic killer seen on the big screen in "The Silence of the Lambs" and its sequel and introduced in the Thomas Harris novel "Red Dragon." Hugh Dancy and Laurence Fishburne also star in the drama.

Even if this were broadcast at 10 or 11 PM, it makes no difference; this is a shameful excuse for a suspense series on prime time. Why, of all the ideas they could think of, did they have to greenlight a series starring a serial killer? No wonder Hollywood is in decline. It's not enough to can just one episode; this whole series should be scrapped. If it were about law-abiding heroes tracking down the dangerous killers, that would be one thing. But taking the villains and making them the stars of the show is practically giving a reward to evil. Very serious error. Even on cable stations this would not pass muster.

Labels: communications, Moonbattery, showbiz, United States