Channel 4 has said that it will broadcast an episode of its popular US legal drama The Good Fight in censored form after the American network CBS cut a segment that referenced Chinese state censorship when it aired across the Atlantic last week.
After discussions with the US channel over the decision to remove the animated segment, Channel 4 told the Guardian that it is “contractually obliged” to show the episode in the same format and said that it intended to go ahead with the scheduled programming.
That means that next Thursday British viewers of the show will see place-holding text that reads “CBS has censored this content” instead of a short animated segment that satirically explained Chinese state censorship.
The Good Wife
The move draws Channel 4 into a controversy over the changes to the show, a spinoff of The Good Wife known for its ripped-from-the-headline narratives, which are often inspired by contemporary real-life figures, including US President Donald Trump.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the segment began with a song that referenced China's decision to ban The Good Wife from video providers including Sohu TV, iQiyi and Youku in 2014. It also alluded to how American studios remove content from international releases to avoid upsetting Chinese censors.
“We had concerns with some subject matter in the episode’s animated short. This is the creative solution that we agreed upon with the producers,” representatives for CBS All Access said in a statement.
Channel 4 said: “The Good Fight is an acquired series and we are contractually obliged to broadcast the episode as supplied to us by the originating studio, CBS.”
Set in a predominantly African-American law firm in Chicago, The Good Fight has been described as "entertainment for the resistance" by the New York Times, which said it is "the only TV show that reflects what life under Trump feels like for many of us who abhor him".
The show’s creators Robert and Michelle King originally threatened to quit, according to the New Yorker’s TV critic Emily Nussbaum, who first wrote about the row, after CBS wanted the animated segment to be removed.
The Kings initially planned to keep the placard on screen for the full 90-second segment but eventually opted to shorten it to eight seconds, with many viewers believing the decision was a satirical one.
The Good Fight's third season "takes shards of the zeitgeist, holds them up to the light and examines them"
“It did not occur to me that people would think that it was a joke – until, literally, we saw our family this weekend and people didn’t realise it had happened,” Michelle King told Nussbaum.
The animated segments have become a recurrent feature of the drama’s third season and act as short explainers on topics including Russian troll farms and the logistics of impeachment proceedings.
The Guardian's Lucy Mangan said The Good Fight's third season "takes shards of the zeitgeist, holds them up to the light and examines them, twisting and turning them this way and that in its scripts until they are fully illuminated".
The Channel 4 spokesperson said that because The Good Fight is an acquisition for the broadcaster – rather than an original show created in-house – the channel has no control over the version of the episode they are sent.
The episode, titled The One Where Kurt Saves Diane, is scheduled to be broadcast on Thursday, May 16th at 9pm on More4.– Guardian
