Why postponing Heathers is a mistake: "There will always be another mass shooting"

Slate

The Florida school shooting that Paramount Network cited today in delaying the Heathers TV series from its March 7 premiere didn't stop the cable channel from releasing the pilot online one week after the massacre. Still, subsequent episodes plan to tackle gun violence. "But even if we take the network’s statement at face value," says Marissa Martinelli, "it is still making a mistake to postpone the series, because the way things stand, there will never be a right time to air an episode about gun violence. Networks have been doing this dance for ages—Buffy the Vampire Slayer put off an episode involving a 'schoolyard massacre' a week after Columbine in 1999—but it’s a very silly dance to do. Guns kill more than 15,000 Americans each year, and in 2018 alone, there have been 35 mass shootings. It’s not even March yet. At that rate, unless lawmakers take meaningful, drastic action, there is simply no reason to believe that there won’t be another mass shooting, and another reason to postpone Heathers again, in April or June or December or whenever they decide the time is right. "