I tweeted Sarah Solemani about The Pact, she and Brett Goldstein thought it was great but the BBC passed sadly.
Good pilots that weren't made into series Page 2
Quote: Aaron @ 29th October 2018, 10:41 PMExcept it was made for the satellite channel, Galaxy. And a full 12-part series was commissioned, with 7 already filmed, by the time the project was cancelled.
I meant BSkyB, for some reason my head always thinks C4 because the former vanished quite quickly and I always equate them with C4. Anyway why cancel after 7/8 episodes filmed? They must have lost a small fortune on that, not being able to air them. Some executive must have lost their nerve or got death threats if they did because they had obviously committed to airing them.
Surely the point of a pilot is to let them decide to go ahead and film more for airing or not so that means the channel must have thought it was suitable for TV. So what external PC twat decided they weren't, so far into the project? I only ever believed there was a single ep made and hearing there were several has made my blood boil, given how much I laughed at the one I watched.
I googled it and was told most of the cast were Jewish so surely that validates it, just as The Producers' Jewishness of makers did. To think there are seven more unaired gems we aren't allowed to watch because of some humourless c**t up their own jacksy has made me want to bomb Israel. (Not really) I'm shaking with seethe, I can't believe a thing like that could happen especially nearly 30 years ago! Allo Allo was still in full flow then and that was hardly PC was it. Fume 
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 30th October 2018, 11:58 PMI meant BSkyB, for some reason my head always thinks C4 because the former vanished quite quickly and I always equate them with C4. Anyway why cancel after 7/8 episodes filmed? They must have lost a small fortune on that, not being able to air them. Some executive must have lost their nerve or got death threats if they did because they had obviously committed to airing them.
Can't comment for how much would have been spent: a lot, I'm sure, but productions were still sensibly budgeted in 1990.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 30th October 2018, 11:58 PMSurely the point of a pilot is to let them decide to go ahead and film more for airing or not so that means the channel must have thought it was suitable for TV. So what external PC twat decided they weren't, so far into the project? I only ever believed there was a single ep made and hearing there were several has made my blood boil, given how much I laughed at the one I watched.
You made the mistake that is the reason: BSkyB.
Galaxy was a channel owned and operated by British Satellite Broadcasting, AKA BSB. After the broadcast of the pilot, there was of course mass press hysteria about the programme: then, or soon thereafter, the rival services BSB and Sky would have been in advanced talks for their merger, which was announced just over a month afterwards, forming BSkyB. Galaxy ceased broadcasting exactly one month after that.
In short, it would have been a commercial decision by BSB and/or BSkyB bosses to cut their losses: either to not scare Sky in the proposed merger, or because the new company had a different vision in what it wanted to do with its entertainment channels; and/or because they just wanted to distance themselves from the bad press the pilot had received.
The good news is that despite the production company, Noel Gay Television, having scrapped most of its library in the late 1990s, all 8 episodes do survive. I put in requests from time to time myself. We can but hope...
Not British, but the "Lookwell" pilot with Adam West is amazing. West plays a washed-up former TV detective who uses his honorary police badge to try to solve real mysteries.
Written by SNL's Conan O'Brien and Robert Smigel. Has an early Simpsons feel, but didn't get many viewers when it aired because the first Iraq war broke out and everyone was watching CNN.
Now has a cult following.
Quote: ComedyWriter1 @ 22nd December 2018, 3:44 AMthe "Lookwell" pilot ... is amazing.
Substitute "us" for "az" and I'd agree.
Quote: behminztur @ 24th May 2018, 7:07 PM
Lizzie and Sarah was just too dark - mind you, Nighty Night was also OTT. I have liked Julia Davis in other stuff though and the period comedy one was good - Hunderby
Merry Widows, Dose, and hopefully not Semi-Detached!
Was thinking a lot about pilots that weren't commissioned. Is Lizzie And Sarah the only pilot without a series that was repeated on another channel? Is Mirrorball the only one to be released as part of a DVD, bar perhaps the Seven Of One strand? Is Hounslow Diaries the only one to win an award?
I'm not sure but I think Mirrorball was a only ever a special rather than a pilot as such?
Re Seven Of One, in a not dissimilar sort-of-pilot, sort-of-anthology vein, Six Dates With Barker, The Galton & Simpson Comedy and The Galton And Simpson Playhouse, plus some of Les Dawson's Network-issed work.
Also, A Touch Of The Casanovas.
The last one looks like quite an interesting case, having its own release.
That makes sense about Mirrorball, Genome says it was a one-off special too. I suppose with my other two examples it's just the way the BBC is, I can't imagine Channel 4 turning down a Julia Davis pilot for instance.
I'm not sure that they were strictly speaking pilots, but Coogan's Run produced a couple of good shows that would have made good series. Namely Get Calf and Dearth of a Salesman. I could definitely have stood to see more of Gareth Cheeseman.