USA Network has announced that it will delay the finale of its well-received summer hacker drama Mr. Robot due to “a graphic scene similar in nature” to a shooting Wednesday at a Virginia TV station that left three journalists dead, including the shooter. Critics who had seen the episode confirmed that the contents indeed seemed similar to the day’s events.
https://twitter.com/soniasaraiya/status/636638309087858688
USA announces that tonight's MR. ROBOT season finale is being delayed a week due to a graphic scene "similar in nature" to today's shooting.
— Andy Greenwald (@andygreenwald) August 26, 2015
Having seen it, I agree that USA was right to reconsider. The finale is excellent, though. Don't expect that to change, even with an edit.
— Andy Greenwald (@andygreenwald) August 26, 2015
This isn’t the first time television and filmmakers have opted to delay, edit, or remove violent TV show content following a mass shooting. After the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, NBC dropped an episode of Hannibal in which children turned into killers.
The film Gangster Squad reshot its ending after a 2013 shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado because the original ending depicted a scene “eerily similar to the real-life events.” James Holmes, the shooter in that case, was just sentenced to life in prison.
And shortly after the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, the WB subbed out a rerun of Buffy The Vampire Slayer for another episode because the originally slotted episode included a “would-be killer” and a “schoolyard massacre.”