I watched it and thought the special was pretty good. Some of the clips they showed were so cringe-worthy they were hysterical.
How about LAX: 2445 (or whatever the date was) with Ryan Stiles doing a really bad accent?
I did like the short bit at the end with the “hey, these were actually good!” pilots that missed. Keys actually looked like it may have been a good show. At the very least it would probably have spared us CSI: Miami if it had been made.
I think it was LAX: 2296. That was really really terrible.
Keys looked OK, but the Monty-Pytonesqe series had real potential.
I didn’t help that during the commercial breaks the station was advertising the upcoming fall lineup. More than once I thought “what a silly concept! I can see why it didn’t make it past the pilot” only to see that it was a real advert for an upcoming show.
I saw a clip of that on a “Before They Were Friends” special that was on recently, showing bits from shows that they were all on before Friends. Matthew Perry was also on it. I was surprised they didn’t show a clip with him.
And yeah, what was that accent Ryan Stiles was trying to do?
[QUOTE=Mr. Blue Sky]
Anybody else just catch this?
It was an interesting look at TV shows that either had a pilot that was broadcast and never sold, or the pilot was never aired.
QUOTE]
Could someone please tell me the name of this show, where did it air, and when they are showing it again? Thanks.
The thread title is the show’s title. It was broadcast on ABC at 8pm EST on 8/16/04. I have my doubts as to whether it’ll ever be shown again. I’d like to see another show with different clips, though. I’m into TV trivia.
I’ve always thought some channel, TVLand or Comedy Central, should buy up all those pilots and showcase them. I even came up with a title: The Pilot’s Lounge.
After seeing Ryan Stiles trying to do whatever the hell accent that was, I appreciate the bad shows that DID make it more so.
If the American version of Red Dwarf had gotten on the air, I’m convinced England would have declared war on us.
And deservedly so!
I laughed, I cried, I sometimes did both at once.
I think Ryan Stiles was doing a rip-off from Balki on Perfect Strangers. I have no idea what John Denver was doing, and I wish I could have seen more of what Marg Helgenberger was doing
The next time we wonder whether TV could get any worse, let us remember. It already could have been worse.
It’s the thread title, last night, and I have no idea.
[QUOTE=AtomicDog]
I just looked it up on our Tivo, and it doesn’t look like it’s airing again any time soon. We do have it Tivo’ed, though, and if you’re truly desperate, I’d be willing to send you a tape of it, if that doesn’t violate an SDMB rules. 
There’s a huge difference between “any part to play” and "that was his premise."You keep mixing the two up and trying to use one as if it were the other to advance your argument.
If you want an accurate comparison to a Marvel comic book character, sperhealing is MadCap’s entire premise, a character that wasn’t taken seriously. The TV pilot sounds almost as bad.
I liked the “I-Man” show, but then again, I’m hot for Scott Bakula so that may have clouded my judgement. I also liked the Marg Helgenberger show toward the end of the program.
But what about that freaky one with Linda Hamilton and the bug-eyed creature? That one gave me the creeps for the short clip. I couldn’t image watching an entire show with it.
Weren’t Daredevil and The Mighty Thor spinoffs of The Incredible Hulk TV series (the one with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno)? I’m getting a vague recolletion of Banner talking to Matt Murdoch (and I think they learn each other’s secret), and another where Thor and Hulk get into a big smash-em-up. The actors playing Matt/Daredevil and Thor looked familiar…
Daredevil was featured on the TV movie, “The Trial of the Incredible Hulk.” And yes, he did have that same horrible, crappy costume.
Thor and Don Blake were featured in another TV movie, “The Death of the Incredible Hulk.”
Both shows should be available in Blockbuster somewhere.
Oops. I just remembered that Thor was actually in "The Incredible Hulk Returns,’ rather than “The Death of…”
Rapid healing is not Madcap’s entire premise.
The man who would be Madcap was a born again Christian. He was on his way to a spiritual retreat with his family and the congregation of his church. The bus was in an accident. Everybody was killed except him. The stress had activated his mutant abilities. He became convinced that there was no God, and that the universe was completely random. He stole a harlequin costume and a bubblegun and went off to convince people that life was random and that nothing mattered. Not only does Madcap heal extremely rapidly (seemingly, even faster than Wolverine), he feels no pain. He also has the ability to induce bizarre and random behavior in any person who looks into his eyes. This behavior can range from eating garbage and having comical hallucinations to ripping off parts of your own body or shooting random members of a crowd depending on what book Madcap is appearing in.
I-Man kind of reminded me of Mr. Immortal, the leader of the Great Lakes Avengers. And, you know, if they made a show about the greatest comic books never made, the Great Lakes Avengers would be a perfect fit. I was a big fan of the West Coast Avengers, and when the issue of that title came out where the Great Lakes Avengers made their debut, it was totally written as if a new series was about to be spun off. Thankfully, this gang of junior-varsity yahoos did not wind up with their own title. But they weren’t completely forgotten, having made it into the pages of Deadpool as well as the Thunderbolts. Guess the writers were suffering from a serious dearth of creativity.
I didn’t see the show about pilots, so I don’t know if they mention this one, but one pilot that really disappointed me when it wasn’t picked up for a full series was Something is Out There. It starred Maryam D’abo (yummmmm) and was about a very dangerous shape-shifting alien loose on Earth. IIRC, the pilot was a two-part TV movie. It was pretty scary and had good production values. I heard much later that a few of the episodes that had been taped eventually aired on SciFi, but I haven’t seen them.
Something Is Out There
IIRC
The evil alien inhabits human hosts like the villain in The Hidden. One scene involves him possessing a scientist in a genetics lab and filling the blackboard with equations in an alien language that looks like Hebrew crossed with Futhark. The good alien is a female police officer with telepathic abilities. This leads to the line “Why would two people want to do that with their bodies?”
I saw parts of it. It’s a shame that they didn’t know that the makers of “Just Deserts” did NOT misspell the title. It’s also a shame that the makers of “Just Deserts” apparently spent too much time making sure the title was right and not enough time on the show itself.
(And I wish I could remember that other thought I had that I forgot…)
If you liked this show, you’ll also like Brilliant, But Cancelled that’s shown on the Trio network from time to time.