The Failed Pilot Project (FPP) is a long-term attempt to look at the medium of television through one of its most ubiquitous forms - the pilot.
The "Failed" part comes when considering pilots that never made it to - such as pilots that were never picked up, unaired pilots for shows that did get picked up, pilots that underwent drastic change, pitch pilots, failed back-door pilots, etc.
By looking at these pilots, and discussing things such as why they never made it to air, why certain things were left out/reworked, it is the purpose of this project to look at television in way that hasn't been done before - at least not this in depth. You can find a more detailed explanation of this project and its origins here.
As this is a summer project, it is my plan to do one post a week, every Wednesday, though given that I will be juggling two jobs, that can never be certain. Your patience is appreciated. Posts will also depend on the availability of any given pilot, whether I have to track it down online or set aside money for the DVD.
Though posts will attempt to be as spoiler-free as possible, most will be written as though one as at least a cursory understanding of the show in question. For those pilots which can be found on the internet, I will embed them here or post a link where you can find them. For those on DVD, I will provide an overview of the pilot in order to facilitate your understanding of the analysis.
The Pilots: