NBC is mailing Mail Order Family back into oblivion. Amid online protest that the comedy series was glorifying human trafficking and racial stereotypes — with one Change.org petition gaining particular prominence — NBC has decided to scrap the series in its entirety, reversing its previous modest script commitment from earlier this week. The series, which was created by Superstore’s Jackie Clarke and based on her own childhood experiences with her family, would’ve followed a mail-order bride from the Philippines who arrives in America to help a recently widowed man raise his two daughters. “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,” an NBC spokesperson 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.”
