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Friday, May 21, 2004

Pilots That Didn't Make The Grade

Now that the dust has settled and the networks have picked up their new shows for next season, it's time to *sigh* and think about what could have been... pilots that didn't quite make the grade.

Like ABC's Extreme Wart Removal: Home Edition. Show featured a team of out-of-work surgeons as they travel the streets, liquid nitrogen in hand, looking to scrape those nasty bumps off suffering neighborhood residents. Compound W had already signed on in a lucrative product placement deal.

Or CBS' CSI: CBS, centered on forensics specialists who investigate the tragic deaths of "Hack" and "The Brotherhood of Poland, N.H."

NBC passed on CGI Friends, in which network executives had secretly taken old footage of "Friends" stars Courtney Cox, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kurdow, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc and Jennifer Aniston and put them into new settings and situations thanks to the power of computer animation. Voices dubbed by the cast of "Coupling."

Fox, I'm disappointed to say, passed on its hour of hard-core porn. Something about the mood in Washington not being right. There's always next year!

At WB, the network had seriously considered the young teen drama Britney & Christina, about two young friends and aspiring singers, one of whom will grow up to be a trampy superstar.

Then there's UPN, which considered putting back into production the late, great Shasta McNasty, following a strong push by fans on the Internet. (Turns out it was just one fan.)

As for Pax, the network was this/close but ultimately said no to Dead Air, a Monday through Friday hour of... dead air. Instead, the network picked up another season of the popular "Ab Rocker 5-Minute Ab Machine" informercial.

Happy Fall!

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