Beginning this Fall, Fox-owned syndicate MyNetworkTV will be airing two episodes of AMC’s The Walking Dead a week. But, the broadcast network’s version of the show will obviously look a little different than the post-apocalyptic America we’re used to seeing on AMC—MyNetwork will have to follow strict editing guidelines to make the show “family friendly”.
Frank Cicha of Fox Television Stations says in Entertainment Weekly, “It’s not often you get to add the hottest show on the planet to your lineup. We just did, and it’s a tremendous get for our stations.” It could also be a tremendous “get” for fans without cable who don’t mind watching a watered-down Dead—MyNetwork airs in 97% of the country.
The Fox syndicate’s edited version will be given a TV-14 rating. TVGuidelines.org says the TV-14 classification is reserved for programs that “contain one or more of the following: intensely suggestive dialogue (D), strong coarse language (L), intense sexual situations (S), or intense violence (V).”
AMC’s version of the show was originally given a TV-14 rating but switched to TV-MA last year after the Parents Television Council complained over the show’s graphic content, which was right around the time Carl cut his unborn sister out of Lori’s womb (no hard feelings, PTC).
Regardless of how many impalements, entrails, and severed limbs Fox’s underpaid and overworked censors will have to edit out of the series, I’m not sure the thematic content of Walking Dead would allow it to ever be “family friendly”. Unless your family is a ragtag and fundamentally dysfunctional group of unbathed armed renegades. In which case, yes. Don’t forget to TiVo this.
(via Entertainment Weekly, image via The Walking Dead )
- Don’t get any funny ideas, kids
- The family who goes to Terminus together stays together
- Walking Dead obstacle course coming to a city near you
