Failed 2015 Fall Pilots

The broadcast networks this week announced their new shows to begin airing in Fall 2015. While this was cause for television audiences to rejoice at the quality offerings headed their way, many producers, writers, performers and other industry insiders are cursing their fates as they learned their pilots had not been picked up.

Below is a list of some of the pilots that failed to find a television home:

By Yusuf Laher (dudephotography) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

1.Andre!: A series based on the 1981 film, My Dinner With Andre. The pilot starred Matt LeBlanc in the title role, with Richard Ayoade taking over the part played in the film by Wallace Shawn. The pilot featured the two main characters having dinner and talking about bugs the whole time.

2. Matter Eater Lad:  In an effort to cash in on the recent crop of super hero movies and television shows, this pilot featured Josh Gad as Tenzil Kim, an alien whose super power is the ability to eat stuff.  In the pilot, Tenzil foiled a bank robbery by eating the bank.

3.   The Billion Dollar Quiz!:  A nighttime game show in which the winner receives a billion dollars.  The problem was obvious when it was announced that the prize went to the one of three contestants who won a simple trivia game each night of the five night a week proposed show.

4.  Stone and Manatee.  A buddy cop show starring unknown actor Will Negland and a manatee.  In the pilot, they solved a jewel heist that occurred in a Florida Marsh.

5.  Mother Most Vexatious! The mother (Carol Kane) of an Elizabethan playwright  (Joe Rogan) is acerbic and demanding.

6.  Law's Law.  Sarah Law (Helena Johannson, who is apparently vaguely related to Scarlett, through marriage we think) is an attorney by day and also by night, as her job is fairly demanding.  In the pilot she spent the whole show reviewing documents produced pursuant to discovery requests in  fairly routine slip and fall case. Highlights includes a montage of highlighting things.

7.  Gitter Done.  A Larry the Cable Guy vehicle in which he playes Gitter Done, CEO of Done Manufacturing, a company that makes bucket handles.

8.  Mystery Island!  Strangers awaken on an island after falling asleep in their homes.  Over the course of the series, they would learn what drew them to the island and what the island represents.  In the pilot they just spent the whole hour talking about stuff they saw on Lost.

9.  Knightly News!  A comedy take on the day's news as told by a Knight of the Round Table (H. Jon Benjamin).  Unfortunately, the punchline to each story was "What sorcery is this!"

10.  Monday Night Lights.  A spin-off off football series Friday Night Lights, but this one was set at a crafts class down at the community center.  In the first episode, the group made macrame owls and talked about Texas.