Jekyll and Hyde: Cancelled Series Ruled too Violent

Ofcom has found ITV‘s cancelled Jekyll and Hyde TV series in breach of broadcast standards. The series stars: Tom Bateman, Donald Sumpter, Stephanie Hyam, and Tom Rhys Harries.

Jekyll and Hyde was cancelled by ITV, during the first week of January. Creator Charlie Higson first broke the cancellation news on Twitter. The Jekyll and Hyde sets have already been shipped to Calais, to be used in the building of refugee shelters.

Ofcom is the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries. You can read their findings, here.

Here are more details, from Digital Spy:

The broadcasting regulator had received 504 complaints, while ITV itself had 400 disgruntled viewers contact them about Charlie Higson’s fantasy horror series. It didn’t help that its first episode was slotted at ​6.30pm on a Sunday.

The premiere featured a character being bludgeoned to death in the first scene, while there were plenty of other violent deaths, including a person getting set on fire.

“We found this programme broke our rules requiring children to be protected from unsuitable material by appropriate scheduling,” said Ofcom.

“The cumulative effect of violent and frightening scenes made this programme – the first in the series – unsuitable for children when scheduled to start at 6.30pm on a Sunday, and without a clear warning before it started.”

ITV had argued that the violence was “limited and fantastical”, and refused to move the show to after the 9pm watershed.

“ITV notes that Ofcom said this was a ‘finely balanced’ decision on their part, and that the programme was suitable for pre-watershed transmission, but not suitable for 6.30pm,” said an ITV spokeswoman. “We have taken this decision on board for future programming.”

What do you think? Do you agree that the Jekyll and Hyde TV show was too violent for its timeslot? Do you think it should have been cancelled, or rescheduled and renewed?