TNTAs the world continues to mourn the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, more and more TV is making adjustments to its regularly-scheduled programming out of a sign of respect.
TNT's Legends is the latest series to shift its schedule, with the network announcing Monday they'd postponed tonight's episode. "As a result of the recent tragic events in Paris, tonight's originally scheduled episode of Legends has been postponed," they said. "Our thoughts and condolences are with the victims and their families."
The pulled episode, entitled "The Legend of Curtis Ballard," follows Sean Bean's Martin as he searches for Kate (Aisling Francoisi) in Paris, certain that the protest she's attending will turn violent. The network has not yet announced whether the episode will be aired at a later date.
Legends joins CBS' Supergirl and NCIS: LA on the list of programs altering their initial plans for Monday night. The scrapped Supergirl episode centered on Kara (Melissa Benoist) dealing with a series of bombings in National City. It's being replaced by the series' Thanksgiving episode, originally scheduled to air next week. Meanwhile, the NCIS: LA hour involved ISIS recruiting young women. An episode originally intended to air Dec. 7 will run in its place. The network tells E! News new airdates for the postponed episodes haven't been decided upon as of press time.
Elsewhere, U2, along with LiveNation and HBO, canceled two concerts in Paris meant to be performed over the weekend, with the cable network scrapping its plans to air Saturday night's performance live. An announcement made on the band's website said the concerts would go ahead at "an appropriate time." And on the evening of the tragic events, NBC made the decision to forego Undateable's live episode, instead airing a repeat. The following evening's episode of Saturday Night Live went ahead as planned, albeit with a somber and quite touching message to Paris in place of its usual cold open.
Sadly, this is hardly the first time real-world tragedies have been the reasoning behind programming shifts on television. In 1999, two episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's third season that depicted violence in school were delayed for months as the first was scheduled to air just one week after the Columbine High School massacre. Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, many TV shows adjusted existing episodes, with The Simpsons removing "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" from syndication for many years as portions of the episode are set in the World Trade Center and Friends cutting scenes with Chandler (Matthew Perry) joking about bombs in an airport from "The One Where Rachel Tells..."
The Boston Marathon bombing and Sandy Hook school shooting led NBC to shelve a 2013 episode of Hannibal where guest star Molly Shannon brainwashed children, making them kill other kids. The episode never aired on TV, but was eventually placed on the network's website. And just this past August, USA's breakout series Mr. Robot delayed its season one finale by a week following the horrifying shooting deaths of reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward in Virginia, which eerily mirrored a plot point in the episode.
It hasn't always been acts of terrorism that have forced the networks into action, either. A Family Guy-American Dad-The Cleveland Show three-part crossover set to air in May 2011 was pushed to October of the same year after a deadly tornado outbreak terrorized the Southern Midwestern and Northeastern parts of the United States in late April of that year. History repeated in 2013 when the season finale of Mike & Molly, which featured a plot about a tornado, was originally scheduled to air the same day a deadly tornado occurred in Oklahoma.
Legends airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on TNT.