For its final episode, Weed Wars celebrates 4/20 with the Deep Green festival in Northern California. The controversial TV series received an extra does of reality this week when the Discovery Channel was hit with a suit.
See Episode 4 clip below
Kylie Krabbe claims that she pitched a medical-marijuana dispensary show called "Greener Pastures" focusing around Los Angeles' Farmacy and its principal owner Joanna LaForce to Discovery in 2010.
"Discovery 'passed' on plaintiff's pitch, saying the subject matter was 'too edgy' for it," the complaint reads. "Yet, either simultaneously or within days of uttering these pretextual reasons for rejection, Discovery approached another producer to create a show using all of plaintiff's ideas. 'Weed Wars' premiered on the Discovery Channel one year later. Not only is the general concept of 'Weed Wars' identical to plaintiff's 'Greener Pastures,' but so are numerous concrete details regarding the plot, themes, characters and sequence of events.
"Discovery simply decided to steal plaintiff's ideas and had initiated, or soon thereafter did initiate, contact with another producer, Chuck Braverman, to make a show using plaintiff's ideas, but rather than casting Laforce who was under contract with plaintiff, casting (Steve) DeAngelo, who was identified in plaintiff's pitch materials as, in essence, Laforce's mirror image in Northern California."
Steve DeAngelo and his brother Andrew, who run Harborside Health Center in Oakland, are the main characters in Weed Wars, which concludes Thursday at 10 pm after just four one-hour episodes. Harborside declined to comment about the suit.
Krabbe is seeking damages, screen credit and royalties.
