From E! Online:
In the wake of Monday's tragic shootings at Virginia Tech, Fox is taking no chances with its programming.
The network made the decision to pull a new episode of Bones from its Wednesday lineup, fearing that the plotline, which centers on the discovery of human remains on a college campus, would strike too close to home.
"Out of sensitivity to the victims and families touched by this senseless tragedy, we felt the change was appropriate," a Fox spokesperson told E! News.
A Bones repeat will fill the gap in the schedule.
In the episode originally scheduled to air Wednesday, Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) visit a college campus where the remains of the school's star basketball player have been found crushed underneath a set of courtside bleachers.
After reconstructing the victim's skull, Brennan and Booth determine that he was dead before the bleachers fell on him. They then work to establish motives for his murder, interviewing individuals such as his girlfriend, his replacement on the team and his future basketball agent.
Their search for answers reveals that the victim was caught up in a shady situation before his death and leads to questions about whether more than one person could have been involved in orchestrating his demise.
Fox has not yet determined when the episode will air.
Bones is the network's fourth-most watched scripted series (after House, 24 and Prison Break), and has averaged 9.2 million viewers to date this season. Fox announced in February that it had picked up the drama for a third season.
Ironically, it's not the first time a show starring Boreanaz has been rescheduled in the wake of a deadly school shooting.
Following the Columbine High School shootings in April 1999, the WB postponed two episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, fearing that scenes where students armed themselves with guns were inappropriate.
One of the delayed episodes was the second half of the two-part season three finale, "Graduation Day," which was replaced with a rerun at the last minute, much to the dismay of the show's fans.
After receiving thousands of letters demanding that the finale be aired, the WB finally complied on July 13, 1999—almost two months after the episode's original broadcast date.
The other episode, "Earshot," was originally slated to air just one week after the Columbine massacre, but was postponed until September, due to a scene where a student arms himself with a high-powered rifle with the apparent intent of committing mass murder.
The rampage at Virginia Tech on Monday left 33 people dead, including the gunman, and more than a dozen hospitalized. It was the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history.
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