Was "Whit Dwarf" a failed TV pilot?

Cafe Society
1

This show, from 1995 was one of my favorite one-off TV movies that I watched when I was a kid. I’ve always wondered if it was a failed pilot. It was made into a pretty big deal, I remembered they kept name dropping Francis Ford Coppola and all these years I thought he was the director, but now that I looked it up apparently he wasn’t, in fact I can’t find any reference to him at all in the IMDB page.

I thought it had potential but then again, I was a kid so what do I know? But some of the interesting things I remember was that it took place on an alien world that apparently didn’t spin on its axis, so you had a day side and a night side. I also remember a big ugly alien, I think it was a good guy or something, and a girl who had to be kept alive for some punishment and the method was she had to drink some of the alien’s secretions every once in a while. There was also an interesting technology where you’d put on these special rubber latex gloves and you could phase your hand into a patient’s body to do medical work. I think one of the plot revolved around something like that.

Anyone know if this was supposed to be a pilot?

2

Regarding the involvement of Francis Ford Coppola, your IMDB link mentions that one of the production companies for the movie was American Zoetrope. That’s his production company.

3

IIRC, there was talk at the time of making it into a series. I assume once network executives saw how godawful it was, they didn’t bother picking it up.

It was an attempt for Bruce Wagner to cash in on the success of his Wild Palms of a couple of years before. That was just as awful – style but no substance and stupid to boot – but got good ratings.

4

Don’t know what it was, but I loved that movie. It was incredibly weird and creepy, but in a good way. I can honestly say if it was a pilot, it was better than most.

5

I really liked it as well. I still remember some parts of it very clearly, all these years later.