Paramount Network will in fact air its once-shelved “Heathers” reboot, despite previous plans to shop the series around to other outlets, the network announced on Wednesday.
The entire season of the dark comedy will be made available to stream on the Paramount Network app and website beginning Monday, Oct. 22. The show will also get a run on the linear network, airing two episodes back-to-back throughout the week.
However, the series will both air and stream without the planned 10th and final episode, which was originally supposed to depict the show’s high school being destroyed in an explosion. Instead, the last two episodes have been re-cut, with the ninth episode to serve as a cliffhanger ending.
“I am beyond excited that American audiences will finally get to see ‘Heathers,’” series creator and showrunner Jason Micallef said in a statement. “Obviously I wish fans could see the tenth episode but the producers and I felt strongly about not changing anything in it, and so, it’s been considered too controversial for U.S. audiences. Still, every day at this job is a delightful dream so it’s hard to complain. Plus, what matters most is fans will now get to see the satire we all love so much.”
The show’s fifth episode has also been edited to alter a scene in which a character plays a first-person shooter-style video game. In the original version of the episode, the game was set in a school.
Micallef’s series adaptation of the ’80s cult classic was delayed, and eventually scrapped, by the fledgling Viacom network back in June. Featuring suicides by several high school students and the ultimate destruction of a school building, the show was deemed too inappropriate to air on the ad-supported network in the weeks following the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida.
In a statement, the Viacom network said at the time that its decision to hit the pause button on the series was “right thing to do.”
The network aimed to find a new home for the show, potentially on streaming or premium cable, and eventually did land international distribution on HBO in a number of European countries.
At the time of the decision to shelve the series, the 10-episode first season of the planned anthology had been fully completed and writers had already begun development on a second set of episodes. A spokesperson for the network declined to comment on the show’s future.
Watch a new trailer for “Heathers” below.