CBS's Murphy Brown Reboot Will Have a #MeToo Episode

CBS’s revival of Murphy Brown is going to dive right into the #MeToo movement, creator Diane English said over the weekend, despite the ongoing saga regarding sexual misconduct allegations against network CEO Les Moonves.

During the Television Critics Association’s press tour on Sunday, English said that viewers can expect #MeToo to be addressed head on during the series’ fourth episode. According to Entertainment Weekly,

“I just want to say on behalf of everybody on our show, we take the allegations of sexual conduct extremely seriously—so seriously that we actually developed an episode about the #MeToo movement many months ago,” said English, who was joined on the dais Sunday by cast members including Bergen and Faith Ford. “That will be our fourth episode. We support the investigation fully [into Moonves]. None of us had a negative experience like that at CBS. We never experienced any kind of sexual misconduct. No one on my crew has.”

The episode also has a name: #MurphyToo. Catchy.

I faintly remember the OG Murphy Brown; specifically, that some of my earliest memories are of seeing Candice Bergen on TV and thinking she was my mom. (Turns out there is only one hard-bitten journalist in our family with an overzealous attitude toward drinking, and it’s…not her.) It’s hard to say who the intended audience for this reboot will be, but now is definitely a great time for a show featuring a tough, liberal woman journalist—especially in light of CBS’s unwillingness to can Moonves despite the spate of assault and harassment allegations against him.

As English said:

“We’ve always been a political show with something to say. But I’m focusing the show on the press. The First Amendment and the free press is under attack like I’ve never seen before and like I don’t think anyone has ever seen before.” Same.