3 TV Shows That Never Made It Past Promises

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We’ve already had the chance to see some truly epic television programs in the past – and there’s more coming, thanks to the insane race among streaming media wannabes trying to at least repeat the success of ‘Game of Thrones’. Amazon is one of them – the online retail giant turned original content creator has last year announced its intention to turn the ‘Lord of the Rings’ into an epic TV series, earmarking $1 billion for this cause. Some have called this announcement a better bluff than even Kevin Hart’s but this doesn’t stop us from having high hopes.

In other news, Amazon wants to spend the same amount on Liu Cixin’s Hugo Award-winning science fiction novel ‘The Three-Body Problem’, wishing to turn it into another ‘Game of Thrones’ killer. At the same time, Apple – yes, the one with the fanboys and iPhones – wants a slice of the cake, planning to release several new series, from the revival of Spielberg’s ‘Amazing Stories’ to a space drama from ‘Battlestar Galactica’ creator Ronald D. Moore. But these are still in the phase of promises – and promises are not always kept…

Here are three examples of TV shows that promised so much, but, for various reasons, never made it to screen, in spite of the creators’ big plans and the fans’ enthusiasm.

Utopia

A mysterious manuscript sequel to a graphic novel called “The Utopia Experiment”, predicting the worst disasters of the last century, ends up in the hands of a small group of people – and it changes their lives forever: they become the target of a secret organization known as “The Network” that would see them dead. They need to save themselves and the world, using the manuscript to prevent the worst from happening. The original series ran for two seasons on Channel 4 before being cruelly cut down in August 2014.

However, in February 2014, HBO ordered an American version of the story, co-created and directed by the brilliant David Fincher. Whilst UK fans were upset over the cancellation of the original show, a big budget remake from an A grade Hollywood director might have helped soften the blow. Unfortunately, after more than a year of work, the director and the channel couldn’t settle on the budget for this production, and another series called ‘Videosynchrazy’, – and both of them were pushed off the table.

Star Wars Detours

‘Robot Chicken’ was a comedy series you could either love or hate but you couldn’t be indifferent to. Its creators – Seth Green and Matthew Senreich – have taken on ‘Star Wars’ several times, airing specials focusing on both trilogies. With ‘Star Wars Detours’, the two would’ve told what happened between the two trilogies – Episodes I to III and IV to VI – in collaboration with Lucasfilm Animations. The series was announced in 2012, and by next September, 39 episodes of the show were completed, with 62 more scripts waiting to be filmed.

Since the acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012, though, things were silent about the series – except for a brief announcement that it has been cancelled, made by Felicia Day. The completed episodes were never shown to anyone – perhaps because they don’t fit into the Mouse House canon.

Day One

Jesse Alexander worked as a producer on series like ‘Lost’ and ‘Alias’ and as a writer on projects like ‘Heroes’, ‘Da Vinci’s Demons’, and occasionally on ‘Hannibal’ and ‘Star Trek: Discovery’. After NBC cancelled ‘Heroes’, the network ordered a new series to replace it, with its pilot directed by Alexander. The show was called ‘Day One’, and was following a group of apartment residents surviving an unknown worldwide cataclysm.

The network initially ordered a 13-episode first season of the show… then reduced the number of ordered episodes to four, turning the show into a mini-series… Then NBC settled for turning the pilot into a TV movie… and finally, deciding never to air it at all.