Ever wondered what happens to those TV pilots that never make it to our small screens? Or how your favorite series would have started if the network didn’t order a pilot re-write? Have you ever felt the pang of loss over your favorite film franchise being rebooted for an extensive TV universe only to have it scrapped by a network at the last minute?
Thanks to a group of media enthusiasts, more than 100 unaired and unsold TV pilots have been saved from the langoliers of pilot season and early cancellations.
UnknownArchiveTV, a DailyMotion channel, has dedicated itself to salvaging “video from vanishing into history.” Their growing collection has essentially become where all of TV’s lost stories get revived and we get to mourn (or cheer) that they only lasted 42 minutes.
The group effort has resulted in the preservation of more than 150 different pilots and unaired TV episodes, going back as far as 1954. The archive features TV gold like David Letterman as game show host for The Riddlers and Supernatural star Jared Padalecki as MacGyver’s nephew. How did we not get this Young MacGyver show?
Other treasures include lost pilots for Legally Blonde, Wonderfalls, Dollhouse and Coneheads, as well as alternate versions of The Munsters and the original Muppets pitch reel.