NBC Delays Trump-Inspired ‘Law & Order: SVU’ Episode to After Election Day
UPDATE: NBC announced that they will air their Trump-inspired episode on November 16th.
NBC revealed Friday that the network is postponing the much-publicized, Donald Trump–inspired episode of Law & Order: SVU following the recent wave of sexual assault accusations leveled against the Republican nominee.
The episode, titled “Unstoppable” was scheduled to air October 26th, two weeks before Election Day; a preview for the Trump-inspired episode even premiered during Wednesday’s SVU broadcast.
Instead, NBC will shelve the episode, which stars actor Gary Cole as a politician whose campaign suffers when women go public with accusations against him, until after November 8th, Variety reports.
“I’m a handsome, charming millionaire — women throw themselves at me,” Cole’s candidate says in the preview, which echoes Trump’s comments to Access Hollywood‘s Billy Bush in the now-infamous 2005 leaked video.
According to Variety, other elements in the episode – which was penned months ago, before the Access Hollywood video emerged and before women ranging from a Trump Tower employee to a former Apprentice contestant shared their own stories about being sexually assaulted by Trump – made it “extremely touchy” to air this month.
Although “Unstoppable” predates the current accusations, the script’s inspiration was a civil suit brought forth by a Jane Doe who alleges that the mogul raped her in the mid-Nineties when she was just 13 years old.
The episode was initially scheduled to air as the second episode of the long-running drama’s 18th season, but instead it was bumped to October 12th, then November 9th (the day after Election Day) and then, most recently, to October 26th, until it was postponed indefinitely on Friday.
NBC did not respond to Variety‘s request for comment regarding the delayed episode, but the trade speculates the decision was made in order to avoid making it seem like the network was taking a position regarding Trump’s guilt or innocence regarding the recent accusations against the candidate.