Saturday, April 20, 2013

Unclear on the Concept

NBC announced that, because of the violence in Boston surrounding the bombing of the Boston Marathon and the pursuit and capture of one of the suspects and because of the shootings in Newtown in December, they would pull an episode of their new series, Hannibal.

The episode featured a psychiatrist who brainwashed children into killing other children. Instead of that episode of a show whose title character is a psychiatrist serial killer who murders and eats his victims, they instead aired an entirely different episode of a show whose title character is a psychiatrist serial killer who murders and eats his victims. In the episode that aired, a character learns that her father, who was a serial killer that hunted human beings like prey and who killed her mother and attacked her, slitting her throat, probably rendered his victims like he did the animals he hunted and fed them to her. And the pillows he gave her were stuffed with human hair.

I am grateful to see a modern television network act out of concern for the possibility that their series might not be appropriate, given current circumstances. I can only hope that the Fox network considers carefully tomorrow night's episode of The Following, the Kevin Bacon show in which a serial killer who slaughtered women and cut out their eyes spent his time behind bars building up a cult following (get it?) of people to also be serial killers. And that CBS gives careful consideration to this week's episode of Criminal Minds, its show about FBI profilers who fly around the country and hunt serial killers in between expository lectures to local law enforcement officers who are too stupid to catch them. And that the A&E network takes a close look at this week's episode of Bates Motel, a show about how young Norman Bates became the guy who dressed up as his dead mother and stabbed young female motel guests.

Wait, what was I grateful for again?

No comments:

Post a Comment