Apparently the Donald Trump storyline has gotten too hot for NBC, which has again pulled the Law & Order SVU episode ripped from Trump’s headlines.
NBC has again pulled broadcast plans for the hot-potato episode which, when last we wrote, three days ago, had been scheduled for October 26 – one week after the GOP candidate’s final debate with Dem hopeful Hillary Clinton – who Trump says is orchestrating all these sexual assault charges against him.
NBC has put the episode on ice until after Election Day, which is November 8.
In the “Unstoppable” episode of the longrunning franchise, the totally-not-Trump-but-they-can’t-stop-you-from-making-comparisons character, played by Gary Cole, is a big galoot but loaded with the stuff. He’s contemplating a change of address to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. for eight years, only some women with sordid stories are trying to thwart him from moving on up.
In real life, of course, Actual Donald Trump has now been accused by more than half a dozen women of sexually assaulting them over the years. And NBC’s role in the sordid situation has grown uncomfortably hot, what with some of these women saying they came forward with their charges after the release of the NBC-owned Access Hollywood tape, in which then NBC Apprentice star Trump boasted to then NBC-employed Access Hollywood host Billy Bush that he could grope any woman with impunity because he is a big star. Trump also confided to Bush that he had tried, unsuccessfully, to shag then-NBC-employed Access Hollywood host Nancy O’Dell. And, after that chat, Bush is heard pronouncing an NBC soap actress they were approaching to be “hot as shit” and set up a physical hug between grope-boasting Trump and the NBC-employed actress. A couple days after that tape was released in the Washington Post, Trump said at the second presidential debate it was only locker room talk and he never actually did those things. His accusers say otherwise. And that group now includes a former competitor on NBC’s The Apprentice.
Last month, the episode was booked for this week. At some point that plan changed, which is just as well (see Billy Bush, Access Hollywood, etc. above). The episode was moved to the the October 26 date, which has now been scrubbed, as first reported by Variety, which reported there had been concern among some SVU vets on the show that holding the episode until after the election would have been a politically motivated decision.
Of course others might say airing the episode before the election would have been widely perceived as a politically motivated decision.
Note to SVU veterans: that’s a risk you take when you write an episode that’s a thinly veiled nod to a thin-skinned pugnacious presidential candidate with whom your network has been in business on a hit reality series and two two beauty pageants.
