As I've explored the filmographies of many actors and directors, I've bumped into a lot of TV pilots. Some were exactly what we expect, the pilot episode of a show that was made and aired and seen. However, some weren't. They were pilot episodes ordered by a network but never aired and never greenlit to become shows.
Therefore, they've become frustrating gaps, entries in filmographies that I want to watch but which are generally unavailable. Nobody taped them off the TV because they were never aired. Only occasionally do they make it onto a DVD box set, if another pilot was made that was picked up and turned into a successful show.
I've actually reviewed one before, because The Best of Times was not only the debut of a certain Nicolas Coppola, who as Nicolas Cage was my first subject for a First Thirty zine, but also Crispin Glover. So many big names ended up in unsold pilots at some point, some quite a few.
Having found a source for a whole slew of unsold pilots, I thought I'd dive into a variety for another zine. Some of them are as awful as they probably ought to be, but some are good, some are great and some are shows I absolutely wish I could watch. There are a lot of reasons why networks didn't order seasons and only one of those is quality.
My goal, as always, is variety. I'll be covering a range of genres and a range of eras, my initial thirty dating back as far as 1963 and as recently as 2020.
Rating System
1 - Abysmal | 2 - Bad | 3 - Poor | 4 - OK | 5 - Good | 6 - Excellent | 7 - Classic
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| The Best of Times | 1981 | 3 | 3 | Don Mischer | IMDb |
| Locke & Key | 2011 | 5 | 5 | Mark Romanek | IMDb |
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