Which three?
I thought that in the pilot Dr. Smith ends up killing someone and stowing away on the ship.
Marc
Grace Under Fire: Noah Segan played Quentin in the pilot, an intense blonde kid with glasses. He was replaced by dark-haired Jon Paul Steuer in the series, and Steuer was replaced in the last season by Sam Horrigan (who looked like Steuer, but maybe four years older; Bret Butler, in a prescription drug-addled moment of poor judgment, flashed Steuer during a rehearsal and his parents hauled him out of there permanently). Basically, Grace had four children, who were played by seven different actors over the course of the show. Two of them, Dylan and Cole Sprouse, went on to star in Big Daddy and were featured on Friends as Ross’s son Ben.
I like this show a lot, although virtually no one else does.
Nope. The ship hits the meteor shower and gets “lost in space” w/o the good doctor.
Just as another bit of trivia – Pipp was also present the day Gehrig ended his consecutive game streak. He was in the stands for the game.
Fan site. Charlie, Sam, and James could not make the move from Boston to New York, and were replaced by Kyan, Thom, and Blair, who was subsequently replaced by Jai (and is now suing).
There was a show called Mantis that had a really well-done pilot, a long time ago. It was a batman-esque show about a man who was paralyzed below the waist who built a suit that allowed him to walk, as well as improving his strength and speed, and allowing him to fire paralyzer darts, as he refused to use lethal force. The main character was black, and had a couple of African techs/butlers who helped him with his stuff. He had a number of run-ins with street gangs, as well. The series came out, and the butlers/manservants (although one was a woman, I think) were replaced by this British guy and a bike messenger, and I don’t think he had much to do with the gangs in his area at all. It was pretty sad. I really enjoyed the pilot, but the series was…less than impressive. I didn’t see why they needed the British guy, honestly.
Does anyone else remember this series or pilot?
bamf
I remember the name, but I never actually saw it.
I remember MANTIS…unfortunately.
IIRC, this is also what happened with the characters of Bobby Hill and Andy Renko on Hill Street Blues; the two were shot and presumably killed in the pilot, but resurrected for the series.
I recall once seeing (perhaps on TVLand) the pilot for Leave it to Beaver with different actors playing Ward Cleaver and Wally.
Dang, memory must have been polluted by too many Manimal episodes. I must be confusing it with the GI Joe episode where a cobra airplane actually blew up without a pilot parachuting from it. Surely I can’t be imagining that one also? 
Can’t believe I’m going to mention this - in the Pilot of Dr Quinn: Medicine Woman, the barber was played by Colm Meany, and by a different (much skinnier) fella in the series
Nope. In the original GI JOE miniseries there are quite a few instances of Cobra planes blowing up in ways where there’s no chance the pilots could have bailed.
And when he was promoted, Chief Engineer Argyle (Get it? They’re so clever!) was disappeared.
Coincidentally, Ward Cleaver’s character was supposed to die from the gunshot wounds he received in the Leave it to Beaver pilot, and the Beaver was going to spend the first season tracking down and punishing the evildoers with the help of his morally questionable bounty hunter friend Eddie Haskell.
But then they decided that would be a real downer and changed their minds.
Actually, Ella Joyce (who isn’t white) played Catherine Duke in the pilot.
In the pilot for The Handler (which CBS apparently cancelled in January, who knew?), the premise was that Joe Pantoliano was the head of an undercover division but now he has to deal with his recently paroled brother, who’s living with him.
The brother is never seen again and the show switches to straight undercover police work.
Nick Knight was a TV movie starring Rick Springfield. When they made the series, they re-cast EVERY role (except for the sidekick, Detective Schanke), moved from L.A. to Toronto, then used the same script to make an almost shot-for-shot remake with the new actors, which became the pilot episode of the new series.
Lost In Space:
In the first pilot, the spaceship crashlands on an alien planet. The family abandons the ship :eek: , and spends the rest of the episode exploring the planet in a high-tech RV. The first pilot had no Dr. Smith, no Robot, and no comedy. And not much plot, either. It was mainly a series of Random Monster Encounters. I think its main purpose was to showcase the special effects artists.
*T.R. Sloane * was a TV movie starring some actor whom I don’t remember. They replaced him with Robert Conrad, and turned it into the series A Man Called Sloane. The movie was straight action/adventure, while the series had more laughs.
In the pilot episode of The Powers of Matthew Starr, the lead character’s first name was David. The sidekick (played by Louis Gossett, Jr. in the series) was some white guy with a prosthenic hand. And the series had an entirely different tone than the pilot.
Man, I need to get a life.
I thought ER and the A-Team both began with a MOVIE OF THE WEEK instead of a pilot.
The first episode of Six Feet Under had mock commercials for various undertaking products, like brand-name embalming fluids and caskets and such. They never pop up again.