Shadowhunters showrunner says Freeform executives offered personal apology over Toy Story incident
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In a post on Twitter, Swimmer (who runs the series alongside Todd Slavkin) made it clear that following this weekend’s airing of Toy Story — one that featured a pop-up message mocking Shadowhunters fans for thinking that their series could be saved — executives for the network reached out to the two of them personally:
Magic 8-ball says: The Shadowhunters family is not to be “toyed” with. Freeform execs have personally and sincerely apologized to [Todd] and I for the Toy Story debacle and we accept their apologies.
This message comes after Freeform shared an apology of their own on their official Twitter account following the incident, which was viewed as a cruel stunt and rubbing salt in what is still a very-open wound. (The network referred to it as a “mistake,” meaning that it was likely not intended to make it to air — though someone still had to have written it somewhere at the network. It’s a representation of at least the thoughts of someone, even if it isn’t the overall network as a whole.) It’s big of Slavkin and Swimmer to accept the apology and try to move forward, even if they may be as disappointed with the remark as anyone. They’ve poured a ton of hours into making Shadowhunters and understand just how deeply viewers care about it.
Now that this personal apology is out there, we do think that everyone will start to move forward a little bit, though it doesn’t change the fact that it happened. One of the more uncomfortable parts of all of this is that Freeform still has twelve more episodes of Shadowhunters to go and if there is some sort of hope of getting potential future homes interested, big viewership is the way to make that happen. For now, we’re treating these upcoming episodes as the end — we’re not in the business of generating false hope — but you also never want to completely close the door in the world of television in 2018. Crazier things have happened over the years.
Random aside
Of course, Shadowhunters fans have a reason to be angry at this — but in a way, don’t Toy Story fans also have a beef? This movie, which is mostly a celebration of understanding, love, and imagination, is being overshadowed now by a mean, snarky remark that aired during it. (Yes, we know that this is one of about a million airings of the movie, but still.)
As always, we welcome some of your thoughts on this subject in the comments. (Photo: Freeform.)