The Monkees is an excellent example.
It isn’t at all rare for the pilot episode to run later, if at all. Many times the pilot isn’t all that great.* (If there’s a cast change, it can’t be used at all unless you pull a Star Trek “The Cage” trick.) So the network will pick a later episode and air that one first, hoping the show will gain a stable audience before the pilot runs. Needless to say, this can cause continuity problems unless the producers plan on it.
One thing I’m stumped on. I thought there was something odd about the cross-series order of things between Happy Days and Joanie Loves Chachi. That they were not married in episodes of the former that took place after the start of the latter when they were married. But I can’t find it. Anyone know about this?
- The original pilot for The Big Bang Theory can be easily found. It is terrible and the actress that plays the Penny-like character is pretty bad. But not as bad as another actress that played a friend of Sheldon and Leonard. Only three actors from the first pilot made it into the 2nd pilot: Parsons, Galecki, and Vernee Watson-Johnson, who plays Althea the nurse in this and other episodes.