NBC Dumps Comedy Show After Controversy Over Plot

mail-order-family

Headline: Written by: Bill Tressler

Last week, Deadline announced that NBC had ordered a pilot for half-hour sitcom Mail Order Family. The show was written and executive produced by Jackie Clarke, whose other credits include Superstore and Happy Endings. Well, word of the show’s plot got out and upset some factions of the internet, and now Mail Order Bride is dead in the water.

The show, which is partially based on Clarke’s own family experiences, centers on a widowed father of two pre-teen girls who orders a mail order bride from the Philippines to help him raise his daughters. The fact that the show was using human trafficking as a plot device in a family sitcom was . . . an interesting choice, to say the least. Some folks online felt the same way, and a Change.org petition was started to try and stop the show in its tracks. Once Clarke and the show’s other producers got wind of the controversy, they decided to step away from the project.

“We purchased the pitch with the understanding that it would tell the creator’s real-life experience of being raised by a strong Filipina stepmother after the loss of her own mother,” NBC said in a statement. “The writer and producers have taken the sensitivity to the initial concept to heart and have chosen not to move forward with the project at this time.”

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Bill Tressler

Bill is a writer and comedy enthusiast from New York. An avid gamer and podcast fan, he strives to always toe the line between charming irreverence and grating honesty.
Bill Tressler
Bill Tressler
Bill is a writer and comedy enthusiast from New York. An avid gamer and podcast fan, he strives to always toe the line between charming irreverence and grating honesty.