Following objections by Muslim advocacy groups, ABC Family has pulled the plug on a controversial show about a girl who is kidnapped by the Saudi Arabian royal family. While no script has been finalized, the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), and others accused Alice in Arabia of “promoting bigotry and negatively portraying Arabs.”

The firestorm was sparked after ABC Family released a description of the show:

“Alice in Arabia is a high-stakes drama series about a rebellious American teenage girl who, after tragedy befalls her parents, is unknowingly kidnapped by her extended family, who are Saudi Arabian. Alice finds herself a stranger in a new world but is intrigued by its offerings and people, whom she finds surprisingly diverse in their views on the world and her situation. Now a virtual prisoner in her grandfather’s royal compound, Alice must count on her independent spirit and wit to find a way to return home while surviving life behind the veil.”

The network initially defended its decision amid the immediate criticism and called the reaction by CAIR and others premature. “Pre-judging a pilot that is not even in production is irresponsible,” ABC Family said in a statement. “As everyone in the industry knows, all pilots go through multiple rewrites, where story lines and characters develop, and very few get picked up to series.”

But opponents continued to protest its upcoming production. CAIR worried about “the negative impact this program could have on the lives of ordinary Arab-American and American Muslims,” and said it could lead to bullying of Muslim children. Meanwhile, ACA condemned the show because it portrays Arabs as “kidnappers and oppressors of women, reinforces harmful stereotypical depictions of the communities as thieves, criminals, persons who engage in violent acts, captives and/or persecutors.”

The best indication of what the show would have been about came from a negative review from BuzzFeed, which managed to obtain a copy of a script from July 2013.

Over the weekend, ABC Family decided that “the current conversation surrounding our pilot was not what we had envisioned” and that it would cancel the series. CAIR applauded ABC Family for not going forward with a project “that had the potential to promote ethnic and religious stereotyping.”

ABC Family will move forward with the two other shows it had ordered.