The Heathers reboot is finally premiering, but without its “controversial” season finale

After being delayed for eight months, the Heathers TV reboot is finally airing. Heathers the TV series, much like the original film it’s based on, is specifically about violence on a high school campus. In light of the many tragic school shootings that occurred this year (and every year), Paramount Network struggled with its decision to air the show at all.

Billed as “pitch black” comedic satire, the show was supposed to premiere in March 2018, according to Variety.com, but Paramount pushed the date to July in light of the Parkland shooting. June rolled around and the network’s president of development and production, Keith Cox, admitted that he “didn’t feel right” about the show’s depiction of violence inside a high school, so they scrapped the series entirely.

"This is a high school show, we're blowing up the school, there are guns in the school, it's a satire and there are moments of teachers having guns. It's hitting on so many hot topics. This company can't be speaking out of both sides of its mouth, saying the youth movement is important for us and we've done all these wonderful things to support that and at the same time, we're putting on a show that we're not comfortable with," Cox told The Hollywood Reporter in July.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRy6Xkq9dYg?start=113&feature=oembed

But apparently, there’s been a change of heart, because Paramount just announced that nine out of ten of the episodes will air over five days beginning Thursday, October 25, 2018, and will be available on the network’s streaming site a few days earlier. The season finale ends with the students blowing up the school, and this act of violence was sensibly deemed “too controversial” for U.S. audiences in light of our ongoing history with school shootings.

Showrunner Jason Micallef addressed the truncated series in a statement: “Obviously, I wish fans could see the 10th episode but the producers and I felt strongly about not changing anything in it, and so, it’s been considered too controversial for U.S. audiences.”

We completely understand if the series might be triggering for many viewers. Episodes will be available to stream beginning October 22nd, 2018 on ParamountNetwork.com.