I am interested in hearing some examples of differences between TV show pilots and the rest of the series.
Stuff like:
Cast changes. Like Alex Bornstein playing Sookie in the GmoreGs pilot but only playing a minor supporting character in the series. (Couldn’t get out of her Mad TV contract apparently)
Structure. Tony doing voice-over narration in the Sopranos pilot.
Genre. There was a spy show a few years ago that from what I am told had a healthy bit of comedy in the pilot but the series was played completely straight.
Or anything else. Stuff like when Carmela pulls out the Ak-47 in the Sopranos pilot, it just seems so out of place and bizarre compared to the rest of the series.
I suppose I’ll be the first to jump in with the Star Trek pilot, from which only the character of Spock was carried over into the regular series (although Majel Barret also came over into the series, as a different character).
In the Roseanne series pilot, D.J. was played by Sal Barone. However, he apparently had some problems with other members of the cast, and was replaced by Michael Fishman for the duration of the 9-season show.
Sal Barone went on to do nothing (apparently, I couldn’t find anything on him at either TVTome or IMDB), while Michael Fishman went on to do guest spots on Fun House, Seinfeld, Walker Texas Ranger, and voicing a character on Hey Arnold!. He also had a part in 2001’s A.I.
To be nitpicky, I’m not sure that Star Trek’s “The Cage” really counts since it was an unaired pilot and was later used as flashback footage in “The Menagerie”.
In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Geordi La Forge was the pilot of the starship (him being a blind pilot was supposed to be ironic) but was transferred to Engineering as the Chief Engineer with no comment made in the second season.
Of course it counts. It’s a pilot so it counts. But if you want to go there, in the originally aired first episode of the series, the chief medical officer was Dr Piper, replaced by Dr McCoy in all subsequent episodes.
They made a comment. He was helmsman the first season, then the second season after he became Chief Engineer, Commander Riker referred to him as Chief Engineer and then said “That still has a nice ring to it,” as if it were a recent promotion.
Babylon 5 had several cast changes from the pilot movie when the first regular episode aired: Johnny Sekka, Tamlyn Tomita, and Patricia Tallman all left and were replaced by Richard Biggs (RIP ), Claudia Christian, and Andrea Thompson, all portraying new characters that had the same function as those in the original. Tallman later returned when Thompson left.
In STNG (and in general for the first season), Picard was supposed to be more actively French, with various Gallic references thrown in here and there. They gave it up because nobody was buying it.
I don’t know if it was the pilot, but there was another version of the first episode of Buffy where Willow was played by another actress, more of a slightly-overweight nerdy girl.
The character of “Elaine” wasn’t in the Seinfeld pilot at all. And Kramer’s name in the pilot was “Kessler” and he was portrayed as a man who hadn’t left his apartment in ten years yet still had a dog. The different name was due to the fact that Seinfeld and Larry Davis hadn’t received permission from Larry’s neighbor, Kenny Kramer, to use his name. One more tidbit. When the pilot episode aired, the show was called The Seinfeld Chronicles.
Yeah as I understand it that “pilot” was done more as a selling sample to the network. It was shorter version of the first two episodes.
Anyone know whatever happened to the first Willow?
The sitcom Bette had Lindsey Lohan as Bette’s daughter in the pilot, but she was gone by the first episode, with she was replaced by Marina Malotta. It was probably a good career move by Lohan, who’s now a successful movie star.
The show also replaced the actor who played Bette’s husband in the pilot, but that was several episodes in.
In the original Law & Order, the DA was Adam Wentworth, played by Roy Thinnes. Steven Hill’s Adam Schiff only took over for the first regular season episode.
(So there’s a bit of L&O trivia for ya, Chris Noth was the last original cast member to leave the show.)
The pilot for *The Dick Van Dyke Show *, with a different name starred Carl Reiner as Rob Petrie. It just didn’t work. For the series, they got Van Dyke, renamed the show, and recast Reiner as Alan Brady.
Three of the Fab Five in the *Queer Eye for the Straight Guy * pilot were replaced for the series.
The pilot for Lost in Space, which I’ve seen, did not have Dr. Smith *or * the Robot and therefore didn’t work, and it was played as a drama instead of a spoof.
The pilot for MAS*H had some Australian guy, a black guy (not Spearchucker Jones), and (I think) the Polish dentist. They disappeared without a trace.
The pilot for Barney Miller had Abby Dalton as the wife, rather than Barbara Barrie. It was also supposed to be divided evenly between Barney’s life at home and the precinct.
I just saw the first episode (which I assume was the pilot) for Everybody Loves Raymond. Both houses for Ray and his parents have a very different floor plan from what wound up as the sets used in the series.
Not a pilot, but the first episode of 20/20 featured different hosts and was such a mishmash that the whole thing was yanked off, the hosts fired and replaced with Hugh Downs (Barabara Walters came along shortly thereafter), and the entire thing exists only as a bad dream in the memories of ABC News veterans.
), Claudia Christian, and Andrea Thompson, all portraying new characters that had the same function as those in the original. Tallman later returned when Thompson left.