> See A Word About Busted Pilots The word was that Stephen Gaghan’s pilot METRO was in serious consideration for NBC’s schedule until the very end (conventional wisdom has it that the final choice came down to Metro vs. Awake, and the latter made the cut).  That’s too bad:  the pilot is an impressive piece […]

>See A Word About Busted Pilots On paper, EXIT STRATEGY looked like one of the hot FOX pilots this past season, a high-profile (Ethan Hawke’s first TV project) espionage thriller in the vein of 24 that could inherit that show’s Monday night slot and its House lead-in.  It didn’t happen:  the network chose Terra Nova […]

> “Busted” pilots, for those who don’t know, are simply the ones not ordered by their commissioning networks to series.  We’re going to start taking a look at some of last year’s busted pilots here at THE SKED, so it’s worth saying a couple of things about them. First, not all busted pilots are terrible.  […]

> See A Word About Busted Pilots It was widely rumored in the weeks before the networks announced their new schedules at the Upfronts that WEEKENDS AT BELLEVUE was destined to hit the air on FOX.  In fact, even its timeslot was supposedly set:  Mondays at 9PM, following House, where it would serve as a […]

>   See A Word About Busted Pilots SMOTHERED, which was produced for ABC by Warner Bros Television, falls into the category of “not as bad as you’d think.”  The concept is Predictable Sitcom 101:  a young couple (Kyle Howard and Brooke D’Orsay) whose daughter is about to celebrate her first birthday, is invaded by […]

>The FOX pilot LOCKE & KEY is a very effective hour of creepiness, but it’s not that hard to understand why the network didn’t put the project on its schedule.  The show screams “cult hit” at best, and the pilot feels more like a shortened feature film than the viable prototype for a continuing weekly […]

> See A Word About Busted Pilots  Deadline reported today that ABC Studios has signed Jesse Martin to a talent hold deal that, although it could end up with him being cast in a different ABCS project, is largely in place so he’ll be available for a redeveloped version of Marc Cherry’s HALLELUJAH pilot, for […]

> See A Word About Busted Pilots FAMILY ALBUM was one of the more buzzed-about FOX pilots of this past development season, and although it’s not on the network’s announced schedule, Deadline reports that it’s in contention for midseason and will even shoot a second prototype episode.  So this isn’t so much a postmortem as […]