Yesterday, Forbes’ Roger Friedman asked if Fox would pull Neighborhood Watch, an action comedy about overzealous neighborhood watchmen whose vigilance turns out to be justified when they have to battle an alien invasion. Today, in light of the ongoing investigation into the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin at the hands of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, Fox has pulled a teaser trailer and poster for the movie from theaters.

The trailer shows the neighborhood watch volunteers, including Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Jonah Hill as feared (if somewhat over the top) figures in the suburban streets they patrol, dragging a white child into a police department for pelting them with eggs:

A Fox spokesman told the Hollywood Reporter that, “We are very sensitve to the Trayvon Martin case, but our film is a broad alien invasion comedy and bears absolutely no relation to the tragic events in Florida.” That’s probably true. But it’s worth interrogating why we find images of over-the-top approaches to law enforcement funny or compelling, whether it’s the main characters in 21 Jump Street busting out their guns to keep the peace in a sun-filled, peaceful public park, or Elliot Stabler beating up a suspect on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. It’s not just laughable when this sense of puffed-up bravado is played out in the real world. It’s downright dangerous.

We’re deep in the midst of pilot season casting frenzy, the time of year when networks cast a bunch of actors and start figuring out what’s actually going to work in their schedules come fall. We’re a long way from any of these concepts actually being a show. But in browsing through the Hollywood Reporter’s list of all the shows in development right now, these are the ten—from a story about an Alaskan cult to a secessionist nuclear sub—that have me most excited. And after how disappointing the 2011-2012 pilot season was, I need some pick-me-ups:

Counter Culture, ABC: Look, I’d probably be in for a show about older women running a diner in Texas under any circumstances—we need some sort of recompense for Good Christian Bitches, and I’ve been excited for stories about women who are in the demographic I’ll be joining in a couple of decades. And I’d sort of like to see a female-led equivalent of Cheers. But given that Margo Martindale’s in the cast, I’m particularly excited. She’s always fantastic, and if the show’s willing to make jokes about Mags Bennett’s Apple Pie, all the better.

Untitled Dan Fogelman project, ABC: I love Comedy Central’s Ugly Americans, the network’s riff on immigration reform but with actual aliens and monsters. And I have a lot of Men in Black nostalgia. Maybe that makes me weak. But a show about a gated community full of aliens sounds pretty funny. And potentially a great way to riff on the inherent weirdness of the one percent.

Last Resort, ABC: Given how deeply Hollywood and the military are intertwined, I almost can’t believe that a major network is making a show about a nuclear submarine crew who refuse to fire the missiles they have aboard and go AWOL, declaring themselves a tiny, independent nuclear nation. It might be awful, but the fact that something this wonky about nuclear policy (and this potentially anti-war) is being made at all has my ears all pricked up. Also, it stars Andre Braugher.

Partners, CBS: Okay, I may be rooting for this show in part because I want it to beat Ryan Murphy’s The New Normal in the gay-family-comedies-of-fall-2012 competition. But the cast, which includes Ugly Betty’s wonderful Michael Urie, David Krumholtz, who can ride the good vibe of 10 Things I Hate About You literally forever, and Brandon Routh, who’s been doing a wonderful job of reinventing himself as something other than simply amazingly handsome, is strong. And more comedies about gay men and straight men who are uncomplicatedly friends are a nice thing to have, and a step beyond the sassy gay archetype.

Untitled Louis C.K., Spike Feresten, CBS: If Louis C.K. wasn’t involved in this show about young people trying to make it in the recession economy, I’m not sure I’d be interested. And even his streak outside of Louie is a little uneven. But C.K. is on a streak so hot right now that I’d be excited for anything he’s even tangentially involved with.
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I’m glad to hear, via commenter Anthony, that The Simpsons will be back for two more seasons, though it’s too bad Fox so publicly went after its talent on the way to a renewal. Alan Sepinwill has a nice meditation on the show’s longevity:

It’s comforting to me knowing that there are still new stories involving the citizens of Springfield. They may not be as brilliant as “Marge vs. the Monorail” or “Homer the Heretic,” but the new episodes’ existence also doesn’t somehow invalidate the greatness of the good old days. Even periods when I’ve strongly disliked the show (what some fans refer to as the Jerkass Homer Era) never made me retroactively dislike earlier seasons. Ted Williams and Stan Musial hung around baseball forever, but they were still capable of putting together good-to-great years in their final seasons (Teddy Ballgame famously homered in his last at-bat at Fenway, in a year where he hit 29 home runs and batted .316; Stan the Man hit .330 in his next-to-last season). These last few seasons have given me episodes like “Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind,” “Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words,” and even this season’s premiere, which wrung a lot of laughs out of Homer befriending a Jack Bauer-esque former killer played by Kiefer Sutherland. (We also got “The Simpsons Movie,” which came out in 2007 and was a reminder of just how vibrant those characters remained after all these years.) And for those who just wish the show would end already, there’s always been the very simple option of not watching anymore.

Of all the shows I wish I hadn’t missed as a result of my mostly TV-less childhood, The Simpsons is the one I regret most. I’m not sure if my parents bought the hype that Bart was a bad influence or what, but somehow I missed out on the phenomenon, except for glimpses of a spiky-haired cartoon kid in advertisements on my Archie Comics. Is there a show that’s more of a cultural touchstone for my generation? More universally referenced? I had a high school assistant debate coach who, in the days when it was still slightly daring to do so, ripped a lot of Simpsons episodes and showed them to me while we were hanging out in the airport on our ways to various ridiculous locations for tournaments and made up a small part of the gap. But what a blessing would it have been to grow up with Lisa Simpson.