Just corrected a note on the Memory Alpha Star Trek Wiki which falsely stated that Star Trek was the first television show which was given a chance at a second pilot in order to make it onto the air.
The Dick Van Dyke show had a failed first pilot called Head of The Family, which starred Carl Reiner and one extremely annoying child actor as his son.
Are the any others that you know of which were given a second chance like that? And if you want, what are some after 1966 which took two trys to get on the air.
Yes, there was. I watched it on YouTube quite a few months ago. An actress by the name of Riff Regan played Willow. I didn’t think she was awful, but she certainly didn’t have Alyson Hannigan’s chemistry.
I know of one that tried three times, and STILL didn’t get on the air –
After Star Trek, Roddenbery tried another series about an American astronaut who falls asleep and wakes up on a vastly changed future Earth (basically the same plot as Philip Nowlan’s Armageddon 2419 A.D. that became “Buch Rogers”, and was still beinmg used with minor changes in the 1978 TV series. But I digress)
These were:
Genesis II (1973) with Mark Spitz look-alike Alex Cord, and with Mariette Hartley as a representative of humans with two navels – Roddenberry’s revenge on those censors that wouldn’t let him show belly buttons earlier.
Planet Earth (starring John Saxon instead)
and Strange New World, with Saxon again, but no Roddenberry this time:
Three tries in three successive years, but no go. Roddenberry reused the character’s name in his later Andromeda, though.
Gilligan’s Island - The original pilot had a different actor playing the Professor, a different actress playing Ginger, and a different actress (than Dawn Welles) playing an entirely different character (than Mary Ann), and a entirely different opening & theme song.
Doctor Who had an initial pilot that was never aired because the BBC insisted on changes, and then the revamped pilot aired as the first episode. Both pilots are included in this DVD set, which is pretty neat, actually, for anyone who ever wondered how Doctor Who got started. It’s interesting to note that William Hartnell’s “Doctor” is renowned for being a grouchy old man, and in the original pilot he is even more of a grouchy old man – in fact, quite unlikeable. I believe that’s one of the main reasons the BBC insisted on a revamp, since the first version of the Doctor is an unlikeable possibly evil mad-scientist type, whereas the second version is more along the lines of a grumpy grandpa.
The pilot for the TV western Temple Houston was released as a theatrical movie instead (The Man From Galveston) after some of the cast from the pilot was not available to continue once the series got the green light by NBC in 1963.
The first pilot for The Munsters was shot in color, with Joan Marshall playing “Phoebe Munster” (looking like Cher), and Happy Derman playing Eddie. Then MCA filmed a second pilot in black and white, with Yvonne de Carlo as the renamed Lillian Munster, and Butch Patrick as Eddie (note that Eddie doesn’t have his famous widow’s peak yet).
According to the American Film Institute, the Museum of Television and Radio has neither pilot in its collection, so recordings must either be presumably rare or not-extant.
