CBS did not air the season finale of hit procedural “FBI” on Tuesday night in the wake of a tragic elementary school shooting that killed 19 children in Texas.
“In light of current events, a rebroadcast of FBI will air tonight,” the show’s official Facebook account posted. “The FBI: International and FBI: Most Wanted season finales will air as scheduled.”
The season four ending, “Prodigal Son,” involved the New York-based special unit preventing a school shooting. “As the team investigates a deadly robbery that garnered a cache of automatic weapons for the killers, they discover one of the perps is a classmate of Jubal’s son, who is reluctant to cooperate with the case,” the episode’s description reads.
“FBI” isn’t the first television series to put the kibosh on a fictional episode that hit too close to home after a mass shooting.
The WB shelved a season three episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” after teen gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed twelve students and one teacher, before taking their own lives at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999.
The episode, “Earshot,” featured a teen shooter climbing to the top of a tower with the intention of picking off students with a rifle. The season three finale, “Graduation Day, Part 2,” which saw Sunnydale High explode in a demonic battle, was also pulled from the schedule after a copycat shooting.
The “Heathers” reboot met a similar fate, which ultimately led to the show’s demise. The Paramount Network show’s March 2018 debut, which featured active shooter training scenes at a high school, was pushed back after the Parkland school shooting in Florida.
The series finale, which saw the high school blow up, was labeled “too controversial for U.S. audiences,” and did not air after the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh left 11 dead in October 2018.
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