According to executive producer
David Gerber, "Flowers of Evil" was based on a real case in which three lesbians ran a nursing home and stole from their residents. "The characters just happen to be lesbians. It has nothing to do with the crime, it's simply what was true in the factual case." The intention was to focus on the issue of
elder abuse. The episode was originally scheduled to air on October 22. On October 8,
ABC aired "
The Outrage", an episode of
Marcus Welby, M.D. in which a male teacher
sexually assaults a male student. Gay and lesbian activists, coordinated by the
National Gay Task Force, staged nationwide protests, persuading several advertisers to pull their commercials, and convincing 17 affiliates not to air it. NBC removed "Flowers of Evil" from the schedule and had it re-edited. Although the network denied that the
Welby protests were a factor in its decision, NGTF spokesperson Ronald Gold said "It's our view that because we showed a little muscle with ABC, NBC took it off the air." NBC ordered further changes, including the removal of any mention of the word "lesbian" (although a character's describing Mame as looking like "she should be driving a diesel truck" was left in). Gay and lesbian activists were slow to react to "Flowers of Evil", because unlike the
Welby episode they had not read the script in advance. Whereas with
Welby activists were able to mobilize a
grassroots national campaign, for this episode activists were only able to alert key cities. There were some protests the day the episode aired. Eleven days after "Flowers of Evil" aired, lesbian activists operating under the name
Lesbian Feminist Liberation staged a
zap at NBC's
New York City headquarters. Ten women entered the building in pairs at 15-minute intervals, traveling by elevator to different floors before converging on the
Standards and Practices offices. Advised that vice president Herminio Traviesas would not return to the office until the following week, demonstrators announced their intention to wait until he returned. Around 75 women demonstrated in front of the building. The following morning, half of the women left, along with the children of the lead protester. The remaining protesters unfurled a 20-foot-long banner from the balcony of Traviesas's office reading "LESBIANS PROTEST NBC". Street-level picketers and they chanted slogans such as "NBC works against lesbians" and "Lesbians are sitting in". The demonstrators hoped to attract both network news coverage and arrests. When they realized neither was forthcoming, they left the building. While the networks ignored the story, it was picked up by local media and the
wire services. ==Critical response==