America’s ABC Network will produce its own Border Security USA.
To be produced by Arnold Shapiro (Scared Straight, Big Brother), ABC will kick off with 11 episodes, with the co-operation of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA); U.S. Coast Guard; Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); the Secret Service; U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS); and Customs and Border Protection/the Border Patrol.
When the show’s creator Dan Meenan (Good Medicine, The Code: Crime & Justice) produced the original series it was slated in a 9:30pm timeslot with a good, but not glorious, reception. But that was before Schapelle Corby came along. Seven quickly promoted it to 7:30pm and the rest is history.
“It’s funny, I thought 7:30 for a show like this?,” Meenan once told me. “I didn’t think it was gonna work. But the programmers seemed very confident and sure enough I think we got 1.5 or 1.6 (million) the first ep and it just shot up to 1.8 the second, and it’s just been doing that ever since.”
Source: Variety
As if the Americans aren’t xenophobic enough! I think our Border Security is a good show, but I’ve always been concerned by the likely inadvertant reinforcement among many viewers of racist stereotypes.