Heathers new premiere date confirmed on Paramount Network

Deadline reports that Paramount Network’s Heathers series has set its new release date for Tuesday, July 10.

Heathers, the series based on the 1988 movie of the same name starring Winona Rider and Christian Slater, was originally set to air on Paramount on March 7 this year.

Due to the subject matter of the series — bullying, suicide, and gun violence, among other things — and where it is set — a high school — Paramount decided to postpone the premiere in the wake of the Parkland school shooting on February 14.

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Heathers takes the concept of the film and flips it on its head — where instead of the conformists being popular it is now the most alternative students who are the most popular, the vanilla students being the outcasts.

Everyone has a label and everyone has a brand to help sell themselves to others, and everything is based on how many followers you have on Instagram. And while the tables may have turned, the concept remains the same — it’s still the meanest and the most obnoxious people who are the most popular.

While it was considerate of Paramount to delay the premiere in respect for the victims of Parkland, one wonders if they should have had to do so if they felt the subject matter was handled appropriately.

Indeed, it would have been the perfect time to release Heathers if it had something constructive and meaningful to contribute to the national discourse on gun violence, mental health, and gun control.

While clearly meant to be a satire, what I saw of the pilot episode still read as tone-deaf, insensitive, and gratuitous.

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My guess is that Paramount is well aware of this and hoped that by July 10 viewers would have repressed the memory of Parkland just like we’ve done for every other school shooting in the last few years.

One can only hope that the Heathers pilot is not representative of the rest of the series.

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