Writer/producer Lee Goldberg's 1991 book The Best TV Shows That Never Were and his earlier (and much more massive) Unsold Television Pilots 1955-1999 were both a great success and formed the basis of two hour-long network specials, The Greatest Shows You Never Saw (CBS) and The Best TV Shows That Never Were (ABC). I though it would be fun to take at one of them.
Sit-coms, cop shows, sci-fi, horror, and some things "that simply defy description"...and stars in the roles that did not make them famous.
You get to see Dennis Franz struggle to stay on a horse in NYPD Mounted, Tom Selleck and Robert Urich doing absolutely nothing in Bunco (the network passed because the stars had "no staying power"), John Denver as a tough guitar playing FBI agent in Higher Ground, and a four-in one cop-family-lifeguard-car racing show like Daytona Beach.
The Questor Tapes has an android pretending to be a human being, but if he gets sexually excited he overloaded and becomes a nuclear bomb. In Condor, a sexy blonde robot babe/cop is interested in you know what. In Steel Justice, a tough cop's young son is killed and is reincarnated as a toy robot dragon who can become a giant fire-breathing monster when Dad's in trouble. Annihilator has everybody on an airplane flight replaced with evil alien robots; will their loved ones notice? Infiltrator has Scott Bakula merges with a military satellite when he beams himself into his girlfriend's lab.
In Ethel Is an Elephant, a New York photographer gets an elephant for a roomie and the laughs just keep not coming. Channel 99 gives us a mid-Western television stations airing such shows as "Bowling for Eggs" and "Shine Your Shoes with Mike." And Robert Goulet hides whatever comic chops he might has as a Broadway superstar turned Acting Sheriff in a small town. Because no one can hit it out of the park every time, Norman Lear gave us a sit-com with actors in dog suits telling one-liners in A Dog's Life.
There's a lot more, and it just has to be seen to be believed. Check it out at the link and enjoy. (Actually, "enjoy" may not be the most suitable word here.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7fu7Nn_Tdk
I've now seen the video on YT, having missed it all those years ago...though some of the attempted ridicule seems misplaced (if admittedly only a little)...the telefilm based on Zenna Henderson's origin story of THE PEOPLE (rather Amish humanoid aliens who live in as much isolation as they can) struck me as Solidly Not Bad when I saw it when it and I were new, and the "Gary Seven" episode of STAR TREK, a backdoor pilot for a series costarring Teri Garr, is one of the less embarrassing ST episodes at this point...
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