CBS All Access censored 'The Good Fight' episode and fans thought it was a joke

Reports claim that the sequence was about censorship in China and how American studios remove content from their releases to appease Chinese censors.
UPDATED MAY 8, 2019

CBS All Access censored a fan favorite show 'The Good Fight.'

In the most recent episode, titled 'The One Where Kurt Saves Diane,' fans were taken aback when a black screen appeared that read, “CBS HAS CENSORED THIS CONTENT.” Fans thought the title card, which was on screen for eight and a half seconds, was a prank, but it wasn't. 

The Good Fight (CBS)

The network censored the show's animated segment written and performed by the singer Jonathan Coulton and animated by Steve Angel, the co-founder of the Canadian shop Head Gear Animation— which educates the viewers on topics like impeachment and Russian trolls via the legal drama. The segment had been fully written and animated, but less than two weeks prior to the episode being aired, CBS told the series creators and showrunners, Robert and Michelle King, to cut the animated sequence.

In response, the co-creators threatened to stop writing the show but they reached a "creative solution," that the Kings wouldn’t quit, but CBS would agree to display that placard where the short was meant to air. The funny part is that fans thought it was some sort of a satire.

According to The New Yorker, the forbidden subject featured musical segments about "the pee-pee tape" and the N.S.A., with a melancholic cartoon about immigration, in which Melania Trump was pictured in bed with President Donald Trump, as Coulton sang, "Poor huddled masses that yearn to breathe free / Does she feel tired of winning?"

CBS spokesperson explained the censorship in a statement to Variety: "We had concerns with some subject matter in the episode’s animated short and this is the creative solution that we agreed upon with the producers.” The same publication reports that the animated sequence was about censorship in China and how American studios remove content from their releases to appease Chinese censors.

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