What Could Have Been/Live-Action TV

Angel

• On Angel, Kate was originally going to have gone undercover as a prostitute, Become The Mask, and gotten addicted to cocaine--all before she was even introduced. It was decided that this might be a bit much.
  • Kate was also supposed to have an important story arc in the second half of season 2, but Elisabeth Röhm got cast on Law and Order, and it was replaced by the Pylea arc.
  • A pretty sad What Could Have Been from this show: You know Cordelia's pathetic death by coma? Instead, she was supposed to wake up and kill Jasmine at some point.
    • Season Four as a whole, generally, was slated to be a lot more awesome than it ended up being when Charisma Carpenter got pregnant and the whole arc had to be rewritten to adapt.
  • Had Angel been allowed to continue into it's sixth season, Oz would have made a guest appearance, and Illyria would have been split into Illyria and Fred, with Amy Acker playing both roles in tandem.
  • Joss originally planned for Whistler to appear on Angel. When the actor's schedule didn't work out, he created Doyle.
    • There was also talk of Doyle coming back in Season Three or Four as a villain. Glenn Quinn's death quashed this.
      • In season five, however, antagonist Lindsay pretends to be Doyle, so they got some mileage out of that one at least.
• Groosalugg was supposed to come back in Season Four.
• Amy Acker and Vincent Kartheiser's screen tests.
• Ben Edlund originally pitched Bad Horse of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog fame as an Angel villain. His reasoning was supposedly that; since horses on tv are usually nice, a bad horse would be really scary. Joss felt the idea was too silly to fit into Angel's universe. Then they did a puppet episode (which Edlund also wrote...).
• After the series ended, there was a lot of talk about a series of made-for TV movies with the characters, but no one wanted to fund them.

Babylon 5

• This happened a fair amount on Babylon 5 -- or maybe we just know more about it than usual because J. Michael Straczynski was a frequent Usenet poster:
  • The original plan was for Takashima (the XO from the pilot) to be an unaware traitor -- she was going to be the one who shot Garibaldi and eventually get Talia's ending. Ivanova would have been a CIC officer already at this point and would have then taken over as second-in-command. Then Takashima's actress declined to return for the series (a year had passed between the pilot and the beginning of the main series, and she'd found other work), so they had Ivanova replace her as XO and split Takashima's arc between Talia and Garibaldi's aide Jack.
  • Ironically, the reason Takashima was planned to bow out in season two was because JMS knew that the actress had a film career and wouldn't stay long. He just assumed that she'd at least come back for the series.
  • Delenn was originally going to start the show as androgynous-"male", and only become obviously female after her end-of-season-1 transformation, while keeping the same actress throughout. They couldn't get the voice effects right that would change the pitch to "male", so they decided to just make her female from the start (redubbing one line to change a "he" to "she", and subsequently extensively changing the Minbari makeup to appear more feminine for the series).
  • Jeffrey Sinclair was originally supposed to be the CO of Babylon 5 for the series' entire run, and didn't end up transforming into the legendary Minbari figure Valen -- midway through production of the first season Straczynski came up with the idea of concluding the series with Sinclair's transformation and realised that he had been unintentionally foreshadowing it in dialogue. Later, Sinclair was dropped as a main character and replaced by John Sheridan from the second season onwards -- Straczynski admitted that he had "written himself into a corner", and could find no more room to develop Sinclair -- so Sinclair's transformation was written into the series in a third-season two-parter.^[1]
    • Additionally, Sinclair's transformation into Valen was originally supposed to happen as a Distant Finale to the series, which is why he appears as an old man at the end in the episode "Babylon Squared". The story was instead wrapped up in a third-season two-parter (as a case of The Bus Came Back for Sinclair), in which exposure to the tachyon field causes Sinclair to rapidly age.
  • In Season 5, Ivanova was supposed to become romantically involved with Byron the telepath, and have her latent powers awakened. When Claudia Christian left the show, the romantic subplot was given to Lyta (who was originally going to only have a platonic relationship with Byron, but still would have become a follower of his).
  • Perhaps the most infamous example: the original plan for Season 4 was to end with the episode "Intersections in Real Time"; the Earth Civil War arc would be concluded in the first six or seven episodes of Season 5 (much like the Shadow War arc conclusion in the first six episodes of Season 4). But then the network PTEN finally disintegrated, and it seemed like Babylon 5 was going to be cancelled at the end of Season 4 -- so JMS, determined to give his show a proper ending, condensed his original plan for Season 4 to make it four episodes shorter and then crammed the resolution of the Earth Civil War into three massively-compressed Wham! Episodes followed by the Distant Finale "Sleeping in Light". Then, at the last minute, Babylon 5 was picked up for its last season by the cable network TNT! There was only one problem: Season 4 had already been shot, so there was now a massive gap at the beginning of Season 5 where the planned story had already been told. JMS had no choice but to fill the gap by taking the telepath colony arc -- intended to last only three episodes -- and stretching it out to eleven episodes over Season 5's entire first half. There's a reason why Season 5 is so unpopular with fans.
  • JMS recently^[when?] went one step further by releasing his original five-year document as part of the issuing of the complete scripts for the series. This document is extremely startling, as it is very far removed from what happened in the actual series. Sinclair indeed remains on B5, but he doesn't become Valen. Instead, at the end of Season 5 the Shadow War is still raging but the alliance against the Shadows is betrayed by the Minbari warrior caste, who destroy Babylon 5 near the end of the series. Sinclair and Delenn go back in time, retrieve Babylon 4 and bring it forwards in time to serve as the new base of operations: this would lead into a sequel series, Babylon Prime, in which the conclusion to the Shadow War, Earth Civil War and so on would all happen. In the end, the two series ended up being amalgamated into one.
    • That "original five-year document" dates back to 1993, having been written between the Pilot Movie and the first season. The actual original scribblings of JMS from when he first came up with the concept of Babylon 5 back in 1986 have been released on the internet here, and are actually closer to the finished TV show in a lot of ways than the "original outline" is. For one thing, the original intention was that there be just one TV show lasting five years -- no more, no less. Comparing the two documents, one gets the impression that the 1993 "original outline" was significantly watered-down to appease the network, pushing all the most expensive stuff into a hypothetical sequel series in order to sell them on the first one. And as it turned out, Babylon 5‍'‍s success allowed JMS to do the entire Shadow War and Earth Civil War stories in the one series.
• Crusade, the Babylon 5 spinoff, was cancelled after 13 episodes due to some serious disagreements with J. Michael Straczynski. JMS had a five-year arc planned out for the show, which he's teased at over the years and will be revealed with the publication of Crusade scriptbooks. Additionally, three scripts had been written and prepped for production when the show was cancelled, including the season finale:
  • "To The Ends Of The Earth", by JMS, would have kicked off the series' real story arc by having Captain Gideon getting a lead from the Apocalypse Box on the mysterious vessel that destroyed his former ship, the Cerberus. After taking the Excalibur on a Captain Ahab mission and alienating the rest of the crew, he destroys it, and the audience learns the ship had some connection to Earth Force.
  • "Value Judgements", by Fiona Avery, would have seen the crew encountering Alfred Bester, the antagonist telepath from Babylon 5 who'd been a fugitive since the Telepath War. Walter Koenig had been signed on to reprise his role as Bester, and thought the script was the best he'd read from the franchise yet.
  • A story arc for Dureena in the latter half of the first season would have seen her banished from the Excalibur for a few episodes. When she returns, it's with no memories and a mysterious glowing sword.
  • "The End Of The Line", by JMS, would have been the season finale and seen Gideon trace the origins of the mysterious ship he destroyed (in "To The Ends Of The Earth") to a top-secret Earth Force base that had been experimenting with Shadow technology since before the Shadow War and now wants to eliminate Gideon to keep their secrets. Technomancy such as Galen's would be revealed as Shadow technology, the result of a deal between the Shadows and the earliest Technomages. The cliffhanger end of season one would see Gideon would travel alone to Mars and attempt to expose the Earth Force experiments, only to be shot and seemingly killed by an EarthForce sniper.
  • The cliffhanger would be resolved in season 2 by transferring Gideon's consciousness into the Apocalypse Box until his body had been healed. As a result of discovering the conspiracy in Earth Force to use Shadow technology, the Excalibur crew would be "black-balled" by the Earth Alliance and become renegades. Ultimately, the cure to the Drakh plague would have been discovered around the middle of the second season, since the Earth Force conspiracy storyline was always meant to be the main arc of the show.

Battlestar Galactica

• Series that never happened:
  • Battlestar Galactica, as done by Tom DeSanto and Bryan Singer. With the full support of series creator Glen A. Larson, their project would have been a faithful continuation of the 1978 series set some 20 years later, using as much of the original cast as possible. The project got as far as having scripts written, cast hired, sets build and filming scheduled. Then 9/11 happened, which caused delays, then both DeSanto and Singer left the project to work on X-Men 2, as the delay to filming BSG was interfering with their contractual obligations to start the movie by a certain date. Then Sci Fi Channel tore up all the preproduction sets, without warning, overnight, whilst greenlighting the series we all know now. This page gives some idea as to What Could Have Been.
• What could have been in the 2004 TV series:
  • The original plan for Battlestar Galactica‍'‍s Season 4.5 had Ellen as a villain, Tory having more involvement in Baltar's cult, which would turn violent, Cavil's forces attacking during the mutiny, Gaeta and Zarek's group leaving the Fleet in their own ships, and Boomer coming over and convincing more Cylons to join the Fleet. It was revised during the Writer's Strike hiatus.
    • In the season one episode "Bastille Day", Cally was originally raped and murdered by the prisoner holding her captive. The writers decided to change this because it would make the scene where Cally bites the guy's ear off seem pointless.
    • The publication of the "bible" document drawn up before Season One went into production revealed some plots that never made it into the series, among them:
      • Lee developing romantic feelings for Laura, and this complicating his relationship with his father further, because Bill also has feelings for Laura.
      • Laura being harsher on security matters than Bill, and Bill following her advice because Lee agreed with her.
      • Bill declaring martial law and putting Laura in the brig because he felt she had gone too far to suppress dissent in the fleet rather than because of a disagreement over the Arrow of Apollo.
      • Six joining in when Gaius has sex with Kara.
      • Laura banning abortion in Season One (she did it in Season Two), and allowing birth control only for women with jobs like Viper pilot.
      • The Cylons having let Galactica escape to find Earth.
      • Helo telling Sharon things about the Colonial military that are then instantly known by the Cylons pursuing Galactica.
      • Tyrol becoming Baltar's archnemesis.
      • Baltar naming people who are threats to him as Cylons.
      • Baltar positioning himself into a position of leadership with the people unhappy with Roslin's administration (this kind of happened in Seasons Two and Four).
    • "The Face of the Enemy" went through a few revisions. Originally Gaeta's old lover would have been a Six and his boyfriend would have been Narcho (Sebastian Spence). As Narcho was a mutineer, their relationship wouldn't have ended. Actor availability changed that. The Cylon passengers would have been a Six and an Eight, both involved in the killings, and they would have a scene talking about the killings while the others slept. Tricia's unavailability changed it to two Eights, with one killed off at the start to reduce the amount of computer trickery needed. In retrospect, as Jane Espenson says in the podcast, this was a boon, because the sororicide made it less obvious that Sweet Eight was the killer.
    • Grace Park originally tried out for Dee and then Starbuck, before Kandyse McClure and Katee Sackhoff got the parts and she was cast as Boomer. The peeps were so impressed by her Dee audition that they let her try out for Starbuck, and she was one of two finalists for the role. Subsequently, she didn't need to read for the role of Boomer, and, thinking it was a minor role, got a pleasant surprise when she read the end of the Miniseries and learned her character was a Cylon (she went "Mwhahhahhahhahhah").
    • Harrison Ford auditioned to play Commander Adama, and really wanted the role. Unfortunately, the producers couldn't meet his pay requests, even after he drastically cut his usual pay scale. Ed Harris also tried out for the role.
      • Jon Cryer of Two and A Half Men fame not only auditioned for the role of Gaius Baltar, he actively campaigned to get it.
    • Season three was going to have a storyline about the Saggitarons having been far more successful than others during a famine on New Caprica, due to their holistic farming methods, leading the other Colonies to band together and steal their food. This would have tied in with Baltar's mysterious whisper to Gaeta that made Gaeta try to kill him (later repurposed for the "Face of the Enemy" webisodes) and would have made the notoriously bad episode "The Woman King" not seem quite so random and pointless.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

• From the very beginning, Joss Whedon planned to reveal that one of the main characters was gay. However, until Season 4 he had not decided as to whether this would be Willow or Xander, and subtle clues (Extremely subtle) were placed for both characters in case his plans were able to see light. Ultimately, they decided to pick Willow instead of Xander.
• There was talk about bringing Tara Back from the Dead in Season 7. At some point in the season, Buffy would get access to one wish that could alter reality. She would consider a number of options, including restoring Angel's humanity. Eventually she would return to Casa de Scooby to show her cute new shoes off to Willow...

Willow: You used the wish on shoes?
Buffy: Of course not.
(Buffy leaves, and Tara's standing right behind Willow...)

• • They could not get Amber Benson's schedule to work with the plot, though, so it was scrapped. There was also talk of bringing Amber Benson back as one of the manifestations of the First Evil, but she refused because it would be too cruel to Willow's character and the fans. The echoes of that plot could be felt in Conversations With Dead People, which had Cassie appear and claim to be speaking for Tara.
    • A shooting script for the Tara version of CWDP did the internet rounds back in the day, with truly heartbreaking Willow - First! Tara dialogue (Willow with Tara but unable to touch her - think about it).
• Sarah Michelle Gellar or Bianca Lawson (Kendra) could have been cast as Cordelia, which was the role they originally auditioned for. Both Charisma Carpenter and Elizabeth Anne Allen originally auditioned for Buffy. Sarah and Charisma's roles were switched, and the character of Amy was created for Elizabeth.
• There are two ways Xander could have been killed off. In the fifth season they considered revealing that he and not Ben was actually Glory's alter ego - presumably that would have involved Glory's memory glitch spell affecting the audience all this time. They also considered having Caleb kill him in "Dirty Girls" so that the First would appear as him from then on, but decided the rest of the characters would have insufficient grieving time.
• At one point, Joss wanted Sunnydale to sink into the earth in Season 5. This happened in Season 7 instead.
• Wesley was originally going to be an American Watcher.
• Many characters stayed on longer than anticipated. Both Jenny Calender and Joyce Summers (Buffy's mom) were supposed to die in the first season, but Jenny survived until Season 2, and Joyce until Season 5 (And one of the most goddamn depressing death episodes ever). Mayor Wilkins was only set for 2 episodes. Anya was to only appear in the episode "The Wish," and after that was only supposed to appear once again in "Dopplegangland." Faith was originally signed on for only 5 episodes. Spike was to die at the end of "What's My Line?" but thankfully it was decided against (after so much hype of being trained by Angelus and killing two Slayers, Spike's death that quickly would have been cheap.) Spike was thus planned to exit the show after his one Season 3 appearance, but was brought on as a regular in Season 4 instead.
• In "Conversations With Dead People", they considered having the First appear to Anya as Halfrek, or to Xander as Jesse, instead of to Willow as Cassie.
• When Season One was being produced, the Anointed One was planned as Season Two's Big Bad. However the actor's growth made him portraying a theoretically ageless vampire unrealistic. If this had happened, however, we might not have met Spike and the beard wouldn't have been grown.
• In "Grave", Buffy would have fought the dragon that escaped in "The Gift". It was changed to earth monsters because of the budget.
• Let's not forget about the awesome "Buffy: The Animated Series." The original pilot was recycled into the Season 8 graphic novels.
• And also the proposed live-action Ripper spin-off, which would have been a Hellblazer-esque dark supernatural thriller starring Anthony Stewart Head as Giles, initially intended to be set during his bus excursion in the sixth season. It was reportedly intended to have been made in the UK as a co-production with The BBC. With hindsight it appears that the Beeb were never actually very interested as at much the same time they were considering the revival of their own biggest fantasy property. There were still occasional fan rumours of the show being made for a couple of years after Buffy ended, but Head signing up for Merlin probably put the final nail in the coffin.
  • Joss is still saying it's possible, though, in an interview that came out in April '12.
• There have also been repeated but never-elaborated fan rumours and hints in interviews about a possible "Faith and ghostly Spike Walking the Earth" spin-off that was abandoned when Eliza Dushku signed up for Tru Calling, after which Spike was added to the Angel regular cast. Ironically, now there's going to be a "Faith and Angel Walking the Earth" comic c\coming out.
• Search "Buffy Unaired Pilot" on YouTube to see a whole episode of What Could Have Beens answering questions like "What if Willow was fat?"
• There was a plan for Andy Hallet to make a cameo in Once More With Feeling, and rumors exist of a crossover idea for 'The Gift' with Team Angel coming to help.

Doctor Who

• Russell T. Davies has mentioned several times that for characters he's made, he had specific actors in mind. One of them was wanting Helen Mirren for Adelaide Brooke in "The Waters of Mars". Lindsay Ducan did an amazing job, but could you imagine having Oscar-winning actors on Doctor Who?
  • Kate Winslet was also suggested for the role of River Song.
  • David Mitchell has admitted to wanting to play the Eleventh Doctor, but felt he wouldn't be good looking enough for the role. But it's the type of part he would do great in.
• Among the alternative pitches considered for the new DW were Dan Freedman's fantasy retelling, Matthew Graham's Gothic-styled pitch, and Mark Gatiss' reboot, which would make the Doctor the audience surrogate character, instead of his companions.
• Jack Harkness was originally going to be in the Doctor's army at Demon's Run in "A Good Man Goes To War", but John Barrowman was filming Torchwood: Miracle Day at the time.
• One of the drafts for the Doctor Who telemovie had the Master being the Doctor's half-brother.
  • Speaking of the Master, he was supposed to be Killed Off for Real during season 11 in a Heroic Sacrifice to save the Doctor's life. This was scrapped by Roger Delgado's untimely death.
    • Said story would also have revealed the Doctor and Master to be two aspects of the same person.
• The Masters of Luxor was a proposed script for the second serial, later published. The production team decided to go with Terry Nation instead, and thus gave us the Daleks.
  • This rejection angered writer Anthony Coburn so much that he swore off either sci-fi writing or just writing entirely.
• When the series was suspended for eighteen months between seasons 22 and 23, a number of scripts for the original season 23 had been written. These later turned up as novelisations (The Nightmare Fair, The Ultimate Evil, Mission to Magnus). They were also made into audio dramas by Big Finish, who released them as part of the Lost Stories range.
• Various proposed companions:
  • Jenny from The Dalek Invasion of Earth was considered as a replacement for Susan.
  • Samantha Briggs from The Faceless Ones was intended to be a full companion, but her actress turned down the offer to become a regular.
  • Nik would have replaced Jamie halfway through season 6.
  • Ray: A Wrench Wench who appeared in Delta and the Bannermen; the production team instead chose Ace, who joined in the next serial.
  • Raine: A Classy Cat Burglar who would have replaced Ace had the series not been cancelled. Finally given existence by Big Finish, who have made audio versions of some of the cancelled scripts.
    • Not to mention Julia Sawalha (the Doctor's companion/fiancee from the non-canon Comic Relief story Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death) was considered for the role.
  • Penny (who would have been the companion in series 4 if Catherine Tate had not come back to reprise the role of Donna).
• A story with an Eighth Doctor, considered for Richard Griffiths was planned for the unmade season 27 in 1990. Dubbed Network, the story featured the Rani.
• Ace would have gone to the Academy to become a human Time Lord. This happened in the Expanded Universe.
• Of the scripts proposed for the 1996 TV movie, the one filmed is the only one which didn't include or presuppose the destruction of Gallifrey. Though every one of them had the Doctor as half-human.
• The Dirk Gently series only exists because a strike prevented the Douglas Adams-penned Doctor Who story Shada from being filmed in its entirety for Season 17: the Time Travel-based plot was recycled from the script.
  • Some of the existing Shada footage was incorporated into Season 20's "The Five Doctors" when Tom Baker chose not to participate. The existing footage was later compiled into a 1992 video (with Baker providing linking material), and the script was later adapted into a Big Finish audio story for the Eighth Doctor. Details here.
• This website has details of most of the unmade episodes.
• While this one has concept art for a proposed Canadian animated series in the 1990s ...
• The monster in the pit in "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit" was originally going to be the Master.
  • In Doctor Who Magazine, Russell T. Davies basically said that they considered dozens of options for what would be in the pit. Another was Davros. Not Daleks, mind, just Davros being a possibility. They eventually settled for Satan.
• Most of the special effects budget for "Fear Her" being given to "The Satan Pit" resulted in significant cuts (such as a cupboard monster), which is why you never see the dad monster directly and the disappearance of lots of people is communicated via people vanishing just offscreen.
• There's also The Dark Dimension, a 30th Anniversary special that would have featured Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy, in a "dark dimension" where Tom Baker's Doctor never regenerated. It certainly had potential.
• In the Russell T. Davies book The Writer's Tale, there are places where he goes over the various episodes' production notes and gives feedback on ideas they didn't end up going with. Most notably, he talks about his expanded ideas for Davros, even going into background information and flashbacks, if "Journey's End" were more Doctor-specific instead of a Mega Crossover. Some of the dialogue on the drafted scripts is very awesome:

Rose: "What happened to you? I mean, your face... your eyes..."
Davros: "Do you pity me, Ms. Tyler?"
Rose: "Someone must have, once."
*Or, while still trapped on the Crucible...*
Rose: "So how was that sentence going to end?"
The Doctor: "Which one?"
Rose: The one that started with 'Rose Tyler'?"
The Doctor: "'...it's cold out.'"
Rose: "Seriously!"
The Doctor: "Does it really need saying?"
Rose: "Yes."
Davros: "Such intimacy with your companions, Doctor. So different from the man I once knew."

• Despair for the alternate Easter specials, which ranged from a space opera featuring an EU race to a horror story featuring alien eggs in a space hotel. "The Waters of Mars" was meant as a Christmas special and was almost a sword-and-socerery tinged future Earth tale.
• Martha's home year was originally to have been 1913, which would have made "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" a "back to reality" story for her.
• RTD's original notes and concept sketch for the Shadow Proclamation (which appeared on TV as a handful of Judoon and one official, the Shadow Architect) has a huge council chamber containing "every creature we've ever had", including a fifteen-foot adult Adipoise, and Margaret Blaine the Slitheen, now a toddler being raised by the Jingatheen family, but still voiced by Anette Badland (who actually recorded the dialog for her scene.) This was axed because it would have used up half the episode's allotted budget in about 30 seconds.
• Ah, the Cartmel Masterplan. Had the original series gone past season 26, the plan was for Andrew Cartmel and other writers to delve deeply into the Doctor's history, while revealing the Doctor as a Machiavellian chessmaster (shades of this were revealed in some of Sylvester McCoy's stories like Remembrance of the Daleks and Silver Nemesis). Who was The Other? What was the real relationship between the Doctor and his "granddaughter" Susan Foreman? Had the Cartmel Masterplan gone through, we might have those answers.
• Had one of Patrick Troughton's ideas been used, the Second Doctor would've been a pirate in blackface.
• Hugh Grant was offered the role of the Ninth Doctor.
• Stephen Fry was meant to write a Tenth Doctor story set in The Roaring Twenties. Let us weep for budgetry problems pushing it forward a season, and then Stephen not having time to rewrite it with Martha instead of Rose.
• J. K. Rowling was offered to write an episode back when Davies was planning Series 1. Of course, she was writing some book at the time and couldn't accept the offer, but just think. The writer of one of the most successful books in recent time giving a spin on one of Britain's most well-known series.
• Davies' original pitch for the two-part episode "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances" cast Jack Harkness as an interstellar alien soldier named "Jax", who met the Doctor while tracking a murderous escaped "alien-child creature" in Blitz-era London. The character was also conceived as a serious, hard-nosed figure who would have befriended the Doctor while intimidating Rose.
• "Boom Town" was a replacement for a story called "The New Team" by Paul Abbott, which would have been set in Pompeii. More importantly, it would have revealed that Rose was created by the Doctor to be "the perfect companion". This was never filmed because the writer couldn't do rewrites and Davies disliked the dark twist about Rose. An entirely different Pompeii story would be made three series later, however.
• Neil Gaiman's "The Doctor's Wife" was originally the eleventh episode of Matt Smith's first series, and as such had to be completely rewritten to feature Rory when pushed to the next series.
  • Gaiman has mentioned quite a bit of his episode that never made it. First, there was supposed to be a scene where they were being sacrificed at the Planet of the Rain Gods when they got the message. Second, Nephew was supposed to be a monster of Gaiman's own creation, instead of an Ood. Third, the (in)famous TARDIS swimming pool would have finally made an appearance. Fourth, Idris as herself (before the TARDIS went inside her) would have been given more screen time. Fifth the control room at the end was originally going to be from the classic series. All five ended up getting cut due to budget (and the third was doubly shot down when Karen Gillan mentioned she couldn't swim.)
    • I don't know if anyone ever actually suggested this, but Idris is clearly a Helena Bonham-Carter-esque character (though Suranne Jones did an EXCELLENT job.)
• The original Daleks were supposed to have guns mounted on a ring around their midsection, for a 360 degree field of fire. It proved too expensive to do at the time, and this ability was never seen until the new series episode "Dalek". They were also going to have rounded bases rather than angular ones.
• According to Steven Moffat, the initial plan was to have the Eleventh Doctor in a piratey outfit, but Matt Smith wasn't happy with it--until, at the last minute, he discovered his on-screen costume. There were apparently photos of the alternate costume which Moffat showed to Doctor Who Magazine. (The black clothes Matt wore for his initial photoshoot and interview, despite fan speculation, don't seem to have been an option.)
  • Speaking of Eleven, there's a piece of concept art ^{[dead link]} for Eleven's TARDIS, where everything is all black and teal and swooping lines.
  • While we're on alternate Doctor costumes--Colin Baker wanted his Doctor to dress in black, but it got nixed as being too similar to the Master's outfit.
• The Tenth Doctor's epic send-off in The End of Time was just one option considered. The other possibility was a much smaller-scale, one-part story about the Doctor befriending a family of aliens on Christmas Eve, and eventually giving his life to save them from a radiation leak.
• For some time it has been known that Elisabeth Sladen was not the first choice to play Sarah Jane Smith: a different actress was signed up, but it was felt that she wasn't suitable and the part was recast. The actress's identity was revealed in January 2012: April Walker.
• A small one but Susan at first was meant to have a crush on Ian.
• When the TARDIS crew first uses the time viewer in the episode The Chase, they are shown stock footage of one of the Beatles' performances. However, the original plan was for the Beatles to perform dressed as old men, and the footage would have been from a reunion tour sometime in the future. The Beatles agreed to this, but some fool executive nixed the idea. Possibly for the good, as if it had gone through it would have been a massive real life Funny Aneurysm Moment given John Lennon's early death.
• An offer was made to David Tennant by the new production team, stating that if he wanted to do one more series, they'd be happy to have him. Tennant declined, but later stated that if anything COULD have convinced him to stay, it was the knowledge that Steven Moffat was going to be in charge.
• The season following "The Trial of a Time Lord" would have revealed how the Doctor first met Mel. Then Colin Baker was fired, making this impossible.

Power Rangers

• Saban as well as Marvel beforehand) was trying to sell the Super Sentai series for years before it finally got picked up - when it was, Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger was used because it was the most recent series. If it had been picked up earlier, another show would have ended up as the first Power Rangers series.
  • Had Power Rangers been delayed another year, Gosei Sentai Dairanger would have been the first series, which would have been... interesting (the show revolves strongly around Chinese and Japanese mythology). There wouldn't have been a Lord Zedd, though.
  • A year before and it had might have based of Choujin Sentai Jetman.
  • Saban had apparently been attempting to adapt Sentai over from Japan all the back to Bioman (Bioman was the eighth series made; for reference Zyuranger was sixteenth.) If you're a Rangers fan, however, this seemed to have worked out for the best. Originally Rangers was pre-cancelled after a 40-episode run, and it's believed that the only thing that saved it was a huge surge in ratings and toy sales thanks to the arrival of the Green Ranger Tommy. Had it been adapted even one year earlier, when there was no Sixth Ranger, it might not have lasted as long as it did.
• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: A largely known fact of Power Rangers net fandom has it that Saban and Bandai, having ran out of Zyuranger footage and wanting to push product hot on the heels of MMPR Mania, custom-ordered original Super Sentai footage from Toei (complete with new monster costumes and incorporating several parts of the Power Ranger mythos into it) to fill in those episodes. Among the concept art for this later disseminated amongst the fandom were a series of unused Dinozord redesigns, complete with sketches of how they could combine with the Dairanger Tigerzord (or a remake thereof) and all of which are emblazoned with the MMPR lightning bolt. The sketches are now available in a compilation concept art book for Super Sentai, and some fans claim parts of the Dinozord redesigns were incorporated into Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger/Power Rangers Dino Thunder, but imagine what could have been had the redesigns actually been used...
  • To clarify more thoroughly in the words of the fan who first identified and charted the production history of Zyu2 (as the footage is dubbed): "Zyu2 comprises 25 monsters and original battles commissioned by Saban Entertainment from Toei and Plex to extend the first season of Power Rangers after the initial episode order of 40. It was produced concurrently to Kakuranger, and internal documents from Saban and Toei even list Zyu2 monster suits as being from Kaku. The hybridized Zyuranger/Dairanger mech designs appear to be control art for a theoretical Zyu3 which never materialized. It seems Dairanger was going to be gutted only for the White Ranger, skipping ahead to Kakuranger for the show's third season and feature film after this. As Zyu2 was prohibitively expensive due to Toei creating extensive new model work for the individual Dinozords, new assembly sequences, and even new finishers atop the usual FX done for the fights -- expenses which Saban then had to pay for themselves, thus necessitating they adapt Dairanger for season two to sell more toys simply to offset Zyu2's cost -- I'm not surprised." And now you know...
    • Plex also made designs for later series, like a modified Titanus for both Mighty Morphin Season 3 and Power Rangers in Space and a pair of stand-alone Zords for Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue's Red and Titanium Rangers. While these never made it into the shows, they were released as part of the toy line.
  • And then there's the rumored cut Zord battle involving the Bloom of Doom, featuring the only Zyu2 appearance of Lokar.
  • At Power Morphicon I, Tony Oliver unveiled many ideas of what could have been in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. From the bad runner-up cast, to the three different pilots of Day of the Dumpster (one featuring Audri DuBois as Trini and Bulk as a random mook that was later shown as the Lost Episode and the other two pilots shot with Thuy Trang, including a more violent confrontation with the newly upgraded Bulk and new addition Skull with a gang of mooks of their own that got cut by the network).
  • In Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie Dulcea at one point was played by Mariska Hargitay after original actress Gabrielle Fitzpatrick was hospitalized. This didn't work out and Fitzpatrick returned to the set after she recovered. Several scenes of the Rangers being trained by Dulcea and revelations about Zordon's war across the universe were removed from the final cut. The ending was also switched around.
    • Catherine Sutherland auditioned for Dulcea (and obviously didn't get that part.)
  • David Yost originally auditioned for Jason.
  • Jason Narvy originally tried out for a role that eventually became Billy in MMPR's development stage.
  • Tommy was originally going to be a biker named Rocky.
  • In "The Green Candle" episodes, they briefly considered killing Tommy off much like his Sentai counterpart but that never left the writer's room.
  • Originally Power Rangers was only supposed to last for 40 episodes with "Doomsday" being the series finale, early version of the script had an evil child named Bubba piloting Cyclopsis and the Rangers would gain access to Rita's spellbook and Jason recites an incantation that imprisons Rita and her minions in a urn much like how Zyuranger ended.
    • Other rumors say that "Doomsday" would involve Rita attacking the Rangers' graduation prom; Saban was reportedly so committed to giving the series a proper send-off that they were looking into flying Machiko Soga to the US so she could play Rita alongside the rest of the cast (and not just in recycled Zyuranger footage).
  • In addition, originally Jason David Frank was going to star in Saban's VR Troopers with Brad Hawkins playing the White Ranger but the two swapped roles.
  • Daniel Southworth originally auditioned for the role that became Adam. This becomes Hilarious in Hindsight when you consider the relationship between Southworth and Johnny Yong Bosch's characters in Devil May Cry.
  • In the development stage, the series was called "Phantoms" (having a more mystical tone with Rita's connections to the Moon) and "Dino Rangers".
• Power Rangers Zeo: The Gold Ranger was originally supposed to be Ryan Steele from VR Troopers, hence Brad Hawkins doing the voice. This was scrapped for the triplet Triforians, and then the returning Jason. Billy was also supposed to be the Gold Ranger at one point but it too was scrapped due to growing tension behind the scenes (later discovered to be David Yost's being gay-bashed).
• Power Rangers Turbo: The original planned mid-season finale was called "Rangers in Concert", which would've involved the current Turbo Rangers fighting a cockroach monster named Rockin' Roach, as well as focus much on Carlos (whose surname was orignally "Chavez") and Ashley (who was originally named "Missy"), along with Lt. Stone's niece Jenny Hunter (from "Cars Attacks", and she was originally called "Ashley"), and introduce Tanya's intern at KAGV, Michael (who was basically a prototype of T.J. minus the baseball skills). At the end of the episode, the Blue Senturion would be fixed, and show Tommy, Kat, Adam, and Tanya the full Millennium Message, revealing Michael, Ashley, Carlos, and Missy as the next Power Rangers and the ones who save the world from the united villains. . But Doug Sloan and Ann Austen were both fired by Jonathan Tzachor before the script could be filmed. However, despite the ditching of this script, the second part of "Passing the Torch" does work on the possibility that the retiring Rangers did see the full Millenium Message.
  • Reportedly, Bulk and Skull were going to get their own spinoff show, a sitcom where they would work at a hotel with an Mexican Elvis impersonator named "El Vez". One can only imagine what that would be like.
    • This was the reason they were turned into monkeys for a good portion of that season - the actors were shooting the pilot.
  • Thuy Trang was going to reprise her role of Trini in the episode "Passing the Torch."
  • The Turbo writing staff was apparently split 50-50 between those who wanted to retain the parody aspect of Gekisou Sentai Carranger and those who wanted the season to be serious to be serious. While some of the silly bits were unavoidable (like the infamous "baked into a pizza" moment), the series stays mostly serious.
• Power Rangers in Space: Johnny Yong Bosch wanted to kill off Adam in both "Always a Chance" and "Once A Ranger". He was shot down both times.
• Power Rangers Lost Galaxy: Cassie Chan (Patricia Ja Lee) was supposed to take over Kendrix's spot as the Pink Galaxy Ranger at the end of "The Power of Pink", due to Valerie Vernon's fight with leukemia, with the handoff already filmed. Unfortunately, due to the uncertainty of Vernon's cancer fight at the time (she later won, hence her sudden resurrection in the finale), the crew was unable to drop Vernon from her spot in the opening in order to pay Lee the same rate and benefits (since PR was SAG union at the time) instead of sticking her in the back end for much less. Lee quit, necessitating a re-shoot of the ending using stuntmen for stand-ins and Melody Perkins (Astronema/Karone) was hired becoming The Atoner.
  • Erin Simms was originally cast as Maya but left a couple of episodes in.
• Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue was planned as a continuation of Lost Galaxy.
• Power Rangers Time Force: The Time Force movie rumors that got derailed by a SAG strike that was later averted.
  • Also, it was supposed to get 10 extra episodes and Eric would die like his Sentai counterpart.
  • There was also some talk of bringing the cast back for the following season.
• Power Rangers Wild Force: And then there was the tenth anniversary team-up episode "Forever Red". Initially planned as a two-parter/hour-long special climaxing with an all-CGI battle between Serpentera and ten Megazords, one for each Red Ranger present, the budget was repeatedly slashed by Disney executives who argued "Why should we spend money advertising old toys?" The result? The runtime was cut down to a half-hour, leaving many scenes either cut or shortened, what CGI there was done in-house literally weeks before it aired, and the climax rewritten to pimp the latest season's newest toy bike, so that Bandai would pay the cost of completing the episode.
  • Conspicuous by his absence is Rocky. Steve Cardenas was called and had agreed to appear in the episode, but he was in the process of moving at the time and the producers lost contact with him. Allegedly he was going to be Tommy's butler.
  • Also, Kat was supposed to show up in "Forever Red" and Dino Thunder, canonizing the possible future that she does end up married to Tommy, but she wasn't available. Thus Tommy/Kim fans can still sleep easy at night....they can also count their blessings that one of the original draft scripts (which revealed Kimberly married Skull) didnt become the final product
  • Summer Glau auditioned for the role of Alyssa.
  • The writers were only allowed to include the horrific death of Cole's parents if they were brought back to life later. Then the franchise changed production companies, and in the confusion the writers were able to keep them dead.
• Power Rangers Ninja Storm: The original plan for the series was Tommy Oliver heading up a Power Ranger Academy with other Power Rangers alumni, all serving as supporting characters to the three new Rangers, the Ninja Storm Rangers. However, the Phantom Ranger does not want a Legion of Power Rangers, therefore creating a Power Rangers civil war.
  • As Linkara clearly stated in his review of Ninja Storm, this was a clear concept along the lines of Awesome but Impractical. True, this could have been one of the most nostalgic stand alone season ever if it got produced, but from a budget standpoint, no producer would turn such an epic concept into a reality with all the monetary and cutback issues from the new move to New Zealand.
  • Also, Emma Lahana auditioned for Tori Hanson. And since she was trying to launch a music career at the same time, one wonders if the character would have been a straight copy of Hurricaneger's Nanami had she gotten the role.
• Power Rangers SPD: Sam/Omega Ranger from was originally supposed to have had a regular form while out of costume, but Executive Meddling didn't allow them to hire another full-time actor, thus the weirdness of him spending his down time as a ball of light.
  • Producer Greg Aronowitz planned for the season to have the first full-fledged female Red Ranger in the franchise's (including Sentai's) history, but since this is a series designed to sell toys to little boys, he was quickly shot down by higher ups from both sides of the Pacific. The idea eventually morphed into the A-Squad subplot.
  • Bruce Kalish had plans for an SPD movie in which Jack rejoined the team, but was vetoed by Disney.
  • A-Squad was going to be brainwashed, but there wasn't enough time to play out the concept, so instead we're stuck with the idea that all five of them apparently just woke up one day and decided to turn evil.
• Power Rangers Mystic Force: Madison and Vida Rocca were not originally written as sisters (Madison's last name was Grey) but ended up casted as such. The inverse happened to Jack and Z of SPD, sharing the last name of Manners before being casted apart.
  • Greg Aronowitz was filming Lebou in New Orleans during the break between SPD and Mystic Force when Hurricane Katrina hit and delayed production of the film. Aronowitz stayed behind to finish the film in early 2006, leaving many to wonder what Mystic Force would have been like co-penned by him along with Bruce Kalish.
• Power Rangers RPM: Eddie Guzelian's original ending for the series, a controversial Shoot The Ranger ending where Dillon was revealed as Venjix's final host body.
  • John Tellegen penned another episode for Flynn.
  • The role of Summer was first offered to an actress called Heidi Bradhurt, with the character reportedly to have been called "Kayla" instead.
• Power Rangers Samurai: Amit Bhumik (who wrote "Forever Red" and was the original mastermind behind the aborted "Power Rangers Academy" idea for Ninja Storm) suggested that the as yet-unnamed city featured in the season be revealed as Stone Canyon, Angel Grove's rival city from the early years, but the idea was shot down. Another suggestion that Pink Samurai Ranger Mia be related to former Pink Turbo/Space Ranger Cassie was also turned down. The city was eventually named "Panorama City" by the series props department, who also supplied Mia with a surname on her drivers license, "Watanabe", which sent fans into a frenzy since that name is shared by Ninja Storm's own Samurai Ranger Cam. However, since "Watanabe" is a common name in Japan, it is not an outright indicator the two are related.
• Around the time of Operation Overdrive, Disney repeatedly tried to cancel the live-action Power Ranger series and replace it with an animated one, with one incarnation having Doggie Kruger as mentor to a new team. Disney also wanted more control over Super Sentai's production, wanting to make it less violent, which angered Toei and is occasionally thought to be the cause of Shinkenger's heavy Japanese influence.

Red Dwarf

• In the original script of the first episode, Holly is female. Additionally, Lister is forty-one years old. In fact, Lister's personality was quite different overall: he was originally written as though his brain was fried by drugs^[2], basically as an Expy of Reverend Jim Ignatowski; Lister's character as he appeared in the show was tailored to better suit actor Craig Charles.
• What-Could-Have-Beens in casting include:
  • Alfred Molina was seriously considered for the part of Rimmer, as was Alan Rickman for Lister.
  • Chris Barrie auditioned for the part of Lister as well as for Rimmer.
  • Norman Lovett originally auditioned for the part of Rimmer. Instead, they changed Holly to a male and offered him the part.
  • When Grant Naylor sent the script to Craig Charles to ask if the character of the Cat was racist, they briefly considered he might take that role.
  • Alexandra Pigg was originally cast as Kochanski before filming was delayed due to an electrician's strike and she had to drop out, being replaced by Clare Grogan.
  • One very early idea was to fill the crew with Dead Stars Walking -- they didn't, mostly because it would have been too expensive, and partly because they were worried the audience would prefer a programme filled with stars, and revolt when they were killed off.
• Lister was originally supposed to continually flash back on before the accident that killed the crew, but they could never get everyone's schedules to line up.
• The originally-planned second episode "Bodysnatcher" was planned involving Rimmer stealing Lister's organs in an attempt to build himself a new body. The writers scrapped it (probably for taste reasons), though the episode does contain one plot point which would impact later episodes (it's in "Bodysnatcher" that Rimmer hides the rest of the crew's personality discs). Some other plot elements and jokes were recycled in later episodes as well.
• "Confidence and Paranoia" was planned as the last episode of Series 1, ending with a hologram of Kochanski being activated and joining the crew as a regular cast member. "Bodysnatcher" was then dropped, "Confidence and Paranoia" became the penultimate episode, the hologram in the box was changed to a duplicate Rimmer, and the new Series 1 finale "Me Squared" was written.
• The most famous: Series III was to begin with Lister going through pregnancy and giving birth, only to have to abandon the twins in their home universe. The episode ("Dad") was discarded for several reasons; among them, the script came off misogynistic, Grant-Naylor found the idea of a "comedy pregnancy" unfitting for the series, and it just wasn't funny enough. Thus Series III opened with the high-speed Opening Scroll to explain the cast changes.
• At the end of "DNA", Kryten was to remain human. Unfortunately for Robert Llewellyn (who was looking forward to not having to go through all the makeup), "DNA" was moved away from its position as the last episode of the season, so he was turned back for continuity.
• The episode "White Hole", based on a scene from the novel Better Than Life, was originally based on the "Garbageworld Earth" sequence. But then the producers realized how incredibly expensive that would be and based it on the "Pool with planets" sequence instead.
• To address the fact that the programme had never really had an episode that focused on the Cat, an episode titled "Identity Within" was written for Series VII which would have inflicted the Cat with a disease that could only be cured by sex and the crew was meant to visit a slave auction at a GELF colony to try and acquire a mate for the Cat. The episode was eventually cut due to budget problems, so in the end there was never really an episode that featured Cat as the main character.
• The final episode of Series VIII was originally entitled "Earth", and would have had the ship return to Earth, smashing through various historic monuments, before finally crashing, at which point Lister would swap insurance details. They couldn't afford it.
  • The actual Series VIII finale "Only the Good..." had, at different stages, four different endings. The first one, which was written and shot, was an upbeat ending where the Dwarfers saved the ship and took it for themselves, flying right past the escape fleet. This was then rejected in favour of the second ending, written but not shot, which was a Downer Ending in which Rimmer went down with the ship. After Doug Naylor's two young sons objected and told him it was a horrible ending, a third ending was written in which Rimmer was rescued at the last minute by Ace Rimmer. Then, right before shooting, Doug Naylor came up with the final version of the ending: an ambiguous cliffhanger ending where an apparently doomed Rimmer sees a vision of the Grim Reaper... and knees it in the balls and runs away.
• In the second version of the US pilot, the Cat was played by Terry Farrell. That's right -- Jadzia Dax as a catgirl. A catgirl in a skintight outfit, as well.

Saturday Night Live

• Originally, SNL was going to have Albert Brooks as a permanent host, but NBC and the SNL show creators (Lorne Michaels, Michael O'Donoghue, and Dick Ebersol) didn't want SNL to be like Laugh-In, so they opted for booking different celebrities each week. Also, the first episode was supposed to have Billy Crystal as a guest performer. Crystal would later go on to host SNL twice and become a cast member for one season (season 10; 1984-1985 season).
• And SNL also has the following now-famous (and semi-famous) actors, actresses, and comedians (some of which hosted SNL) who auditioned for the show, but never made it:
  • Jim Carrey (would have been a cast member for the 1980-1981 season. Considering how it turned out, maybe it was for the best that Carrey didn't get picked).
  • John Goodman (would have been a cast member for the 1980-1981 season)
  • Dom Irrera (would have been a cast member for the 1980-1981 season)
  • Robert Townsend (was picked as a cast member for the 1980-1981 season, but was replaced at the last minute by Eddie Murphy)
  • Catherine O'Hara (was picked when NBC was trying to retool SNL following the disastrous 1980-1981 season, but O'Hara left after SNL writer Michael O'Donoghue yelled at the cast and writers for ruining the show. O'Hara was replaced with fellow SCTV cast member, Robin Duke).
  • Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens (would have been a cast member in the 1984-1985 season, but was passed up in favor of Billy Crystal).
  • Even though Jan Hooks did end up being an SNL cast member in the 1986-1987 season (season 12), she originally auditioned for the 11th season (1985-1986) season, but was turned down in favor of Joan Cusack.
  • Geena Davis (would have been a cast member for the 1984-1985 season [season ten]; lost to Pamela Stephenson)
  • Lisa Kudrow (would have been a cast member for the 1990-1991 season [season sixteen]; lost to Julia Sweeney)
  • Steve Carrell (would have been a cast member for the 1995-1996 season [season 21]; lost to Will Ferrell, but did become a voice actor for the TV Funhouse series, "The Ambiguously Gay Duo")
  • Johnny Knoxville (never auditioned to be an SNL cast member, but was offered the chance to have his Jackass stunts be shown on SNL as part of a short film series for season 21 [1995-1996 season], much like SNL would later do for The Lonely Island. Knoxville rejected the offer).
  • Stephnie Weir (auditioned for the 1999-2000 cast [season 25]; lost to Rachel Dratch and ended up on Mad TV)
  • Dane Cook (auditioned for the 2002-2003 season [season 28]; lost to Will Forte)
  • Maria Bamford (auditioned for the 2003-2004 season [season 29]; lost to Finesse Mitchell)
  • Rob Huebel (auditioned for the 2004-2005 cast [season 30] along with comedy partner Rob Riggle; Huebel wasn't picked, but Riggle was [even though he would only be on the show for a season])
  • Donald Glover and Mad TV's Jordan Peele [the latter of which is known for his dead-on impersonations of Ja Rule, Morgan Freeman, Big Bird, Montell Williams, Flava Flav, and Forest Whitaker] (one of them would have been a cast member for the 2007-2008 season [season 33] when Lorne was looking for someone to play Barack Obama. Instead, Michaels looked inward to his cast and found Fred Armisen, who, despite not looking or being black [Armisen is Venezuelan, German, and Japanese], can get the voice and facial expressions right for Obama.
  • Seasons six, eleven, and twenty were originally slated to be the final seasons for the show as those three seasons were so unfunny, mismanaged, and low-rated that NBC threatened to have SNL cancelled because of it. Evidently, these threats didn't take and, for better or worse, SNL is still on the air.

Star Trek

• Spock's iconic Vulcan salute was actually a last minute change. The original salute would have involved one Vulcan kneeling in front of another, while the standing Vulcan grabs the kneeling Vulcan's shoulders with both arms. Leonard Nimoy changed the salute because he felt it didn't fit the Vulcans' characterization, as they would have considered such physical contact a violation of privacy. Plus it just looked plain silly.
• The Klingon Koloth from the episode "The Trouble With Tribbles" was envisioned as a recurring character and arch-nemesis of Kirk's. William Campbell, the actor who played Koloth, once said in an interview that he would have played Koloth as Kirk's equal and opposite in the Klingon empire, and someone who respected his adversary, to the point where he would save Kirk's life from other enemies on occasion, declaring that nobody could kill Kirk but him.
  • When the character of Koloth reappears decades later in Deep Space Nine he remarks that his greatest regret is never getting to meet Kirk in battle.
• Several plans were made had Enterprise been renewed for another season, among them:
  • An episode essentially nullifying the unpopular ending of "These Are the Voyages" and reviving Trip in some way. (A book that was written, albeit without any guidance from the writers of the series, basically said that the death and its inclusion in the Holodeck program was part of a cover-up to hide the true purposes of a mission.)
  • An episode called "The Treatment" that would have guest-starred the incredibly-long-lived Star Trek: The Next Generation character Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) and would have had an appearance by Spock's grandfather, Skon, and the words (yes, there are words) of the original Star Trek theme song being sung out loud by a Capellan (Chase Masterson).
  • Here's Tenacious D singing said Roddenberry lyrics live in concert.
  • An episode called "Kilkenny Cats", which would have featured the Kzinti, the Star Trek version of the Cat-like race of the same name that is seen in Larry Niven's Known Space.
  • Shran would have become a member of the crew, no doubt foreshadowing Andoria's co-founding of the Federation with Vulcan, Earth, and Tellar.
    • Interestingly enough, Shran's actor, Jeffrey Combs, had auditioned years previously for the role of Riker on The Next Generation.
  • Several episodes that would explain or foreshadow events in the "future" Star Trek Series (mainly TOS): Stratos, NOMAD, Flint, The Borg Queen, "This Side of Paradise" and possibly more on the Mirror Universe would have been explored.
  • William Shatner may have finally showed up... as an aged Mirror Universe James T. Kirk who had been shunted through time and space!
  • And, believe it or not, there might have been a televised crossover with Doctor Who. Seriously. Russell T. Davies was planning on making overtures to Paramount for a story in which the TARDIS showed up on the NX-01, but the Trek series was canceled before he could do so. He admitted it probably wouldn't have happened (for obvious reasons), and certainly not in a way that the two creative teams would have liked. But still, the two longest-running SF Franchises in history...
    • I have a Number One now. Number Ones are cool
• For that matter, what would have happened if the first Star Trek: TOS pilot was the one that got picked up?
• Star Trek: Phase II. Intended as a continuation of Star Trek: TOS but with an extensive visual update and new characters. The pilot of the series and the already partially-built sets were reworked into The Motion Picture, while many of the remaining scripts got recycled ten years later as TNG episodes.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: The original concept for Sela is that she would have been Tasha and Castillo's daughter, raised by Romulans, and eventually have a Heel Face Turn.
  • The very earliest concept for the series seen it as being set more than a century after the original, featuring the NCC-1701-7 (not a typo, they really were going to have a number instead of a letter), and with the ship being crewed by... cadets. When Gene Roddenberry heard about these plans, which were put forward by the studio executives completely independently of him, he rang them up and insisted on taking personal charge of the series.
  • Wesley was also, originally, going to be a teenage girl, Lesley Crusher, until Roddenberry decided to cast Wil Weaton in the part, and gave the character his own middle name.
    • Wes was also originally intended to be the product of an affair between Picard and Beverly Crusher. This was alluded to in early seasons, but wound up going nowhere.
  • At one point in development, it was considered to ditch the starship concept altogether and instead increase the power of the transporter to allow the crew to beam from planet to planet every week. The idea didn't last very long.
  • The Borg were at one point supposed to have a much bigger part in the series than they did. Those Romulan and Federation outposts that were wiped out at the end of the first season were supposed to be foreshadows of a major Borg invasion of the Romulan Empire. A writer's strike wound up forcing the producers to cut and change the story to what was seen in "The Best of Both Worlds". Certainly would have been a darker turn for the series though.
    • The Borg were originally supposed to be an insectoid race, related to the invading parasites from the first season. They were later reimagined into more budget-friendly humanoid cyborgs.
  • Take a look at this casting letter for a bunch of What Might Have Been. Patrick Bauchau as Picard? Wesley Snipes as Geordi? Jenny Agutter as Beverly? Rosalind Chao as Tasha? Fun House host J.D. Roth as Wesley?
  • Data had a remarkably different original backstory as a product of alien biomechanics. This idea was probably still in the writers' minds as of TNG "The Naked Now" when Data compared himself to a biological life form in an attempt to explain to Picard how it was that he could get intoxicated by the virus in that episode.
• The producers of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine briefly considered setting the series on Bajor itself, within a planet based facility, with heavy use of location filming for the exteriors of the base. Though hardly a huge change to the format of the eventual series, it would have opened up storytelling possibilities, with some Bajorans suspecting that they'd simply traded one set of occupiers for another (an idea that nevertheless made it into the series, at least as subtext).
  • Melora from "Melora" was meant to be the station's chief science officer, but this proved impossible due to problems with portraying zero gravity. It was possible, however, to feature her as a one-off character. The change is for the better, what with people already being annoyed at a character from a low gravity planet being inexplicably humanoid.
  • The role of Major Kira was initially intended to be Next Generation recurrer Ro Laren, which was the entire reason for setting the show near Bajor. When Michelle Forbes declined to do a series, Nana Visitor was hired instead. Although the show would certainly have been well-done, showrunners claim that having Kira - who was quite emphatically not a member of Starfleet, and didn't much like the Federation - opened up possibilities for internal conflict that would not have otherwise existed.
  • "Homefront" and "Paradise Lost" were going to be the finale of season 3 and the premiere of season 4 respectively. However, Paramount decided to boost ratings by introducing a Klingon storyline and adding a TNG regular (they decided on Worf) to the main cast.
  • Leonard Nimoy expressed interest in playing Mirror Universe Spock in an episode.
  • Ronald Moore originally wanted to name the Defiant Valiant, but this was rejected out of fear people would confuse it with Voyager. The name Valiant was eventually used for one of the Defiant's sister ships.
• Tom Paris on Star Trek: Voyager was originally meant to be one-off TNG character Nicholas Locarno (who was played by the same actor and had roughly the same past); reasons for changing it include royalties and the far more likely idea that, unlike Tom, Nicholas was "irredeemable".
  • Additionally, the Year of Hell was not originally just a two-parter but instead the plan for the entire fourth season, until Executive Meddling ended that.
    • Only if the season finale wasn't a massive Reset Button like the two-part episode's ending was, which would have reduced a grim and gritty season to a Dallas cop-out
    • It was, indeed, foreshadowed in the season three episode "Before and After", where Kes' time-jumps were caused by a Krenim temporal weapon in Voyager's future, although Kes would leave shortly into the fourth season.
• Joanna McCoy, Dr. McCoy's daughter, who was in the Universe Bible for the original Trek series. In the third season, an episode was written which introduced her, but it eventually mutated into the infamous hippie episode "The Way To Eden" with Joanna replaced by Irina Galliulin. Joanna was then set to appear in the fourth season, but the show got cancelled first. She was finally mentioned (but unseen) in Star Trek: The Animated Series and, of course, she has made many appearances in the Star Trek Expanded Universe. But technically she still does not canonically exist.
  • By the way, the "Michael Richards" who has co-story credit isn't that Michael Richards but a pseudonym for D.C. Fontana who wrote the original script for "Joanna" (the episode's initial title); she washed her hands of it after rewriting took effect.
• Harlan Ellison's original script of "The City on the Edge of Forever", which was heavily rewritten, mostly due to cost. The aired version was almost entirely written by Star Trek story editor D. C. Fontana, who is uncredited. Ellison was not pleased, believing his version to be True Art. Notable differences include:
  • Instead of McCoy, history is changed by a random drug-dealing crew member. (Gene Roddenberry would later erroneously claim the script featured Scotty dealing drugs.) Unlike McCoy, this character is a proper villain who murders a Red Shirt who tries to report him. At the end of the episode, the drug-dealing crew member escapes into time again, only to be caught in a star the moment it goes supernova. Time replays itself continuously afterwards, forcing him to relive the supernova again and again as his eternal punishment.
  • Yeoman Rand is the only name character to beam down to the planet with Kirk and Spock. In the final episode, Scotty and Uhura share this role. (Rand had been written out of the series by the time the episode was filmed.)
  • Instead of simply disappearing, the Enterprise is replaced by a ship of Space Pirates. This part was apparently forced on Ellison by Executive Meddling, only to be deleted from the final version anyway. A similar concept was later used in the episode "Mirror, Mirror".
  • The Guardians of Forever (note the plural) are nine-foot-tall aliens who guard the Time Vortex of the Ancients. Thus, the Guardian of Forever in the final episode is not just a Composite Character of the two aliens, but also of the vortex itself.
  • Kirk and Spock are taken in by a janitor and first encounter Edith Keeler when she makes her speech. Kirk and Spock recognize her as their focal point in time immediately and spy on her for a while before making contact.
  • Kirk does let Edith fall down the stairs, realizing in time that she is meant to die. Edith survives the fall, but is confused by Kirk's behavior and he ends up feeling guilty. When the climax rolls around, Kirk is unable to let her die and Spock has to step in to restore history. (This seems to be the change Ellison is most upset about, feeling that his version makes Kirk flawed and human instead of just The Hero.)

Other

• In Top Gear, the presenter originally planned for the Vampire rocket-car segment was James May. He had to back out due to a schedule conflict and Richard Hammond did it instead. The car crashed at 288 mph and nearly killed him. Dark Fic writers, start your engines.
  • Also, the bulk of the filming had been completed around 5 pm, but they had use of the track for another half hour. Hammond opted to take the rocket-car out one more time -- and crashed.
  • On the grimmer side, the car not only went off the track but rolled over and did an extended slide upside down. Hammond's height (generously listed as 5'7") may have saved him from being decapitated. James May is several inches taller. So... yeah.
    • On the segment where they watch the footage, notice Clarkson is doing most of the talking. You can see that May knows exactly that fact above...his expression says it all.
  • On the other hand, had he done the segment, the cautious May (compared to the risk-taker Hammond) might never have taken it out for one last run.
• Law and Order Special Victims Unit: A plan was scrapped to reveal in the episode "Taken", when Olivia's mother dies, that her mother lied about being raped, followed by Olivia meeting her father. Unfortunately, many fans still haven't gotten the "scrapped" part and think that's All There in the Manual, which must have made for a very confusing Season 8.
• Heroes: Forget Peter Petrelli's telekinesis. What really saved the world from getting a virus released on it in S2 was the Writer's Strike. As you might have been expecting, a whole section of the S2 DVD/Bluray release is devoted to What Could Have Been without the Strike ("Untold Stories").
  • Elle was supposed to be revealed as Claire's sister... and, of course, yet another damn Petrelli. This was luckily dropped. Though the writers briefly decided to imply that Sylar was a Petrelli for no discernible reason instead. Then it turned out Mama Patrelli lied about that.
  • Let's all breathe a heavy, sad sigh for the proposed Origins spinoff anthology series.
  • The first season had plenty of plans that were abandoned, with Sylar originally being a Paul E. Sylar (and much older than the Sylar that was used), and a terrorist plot involving a character named Amid Halebi (who had a connection to Matt), and countless other differences in the plans...
  • Before the series started, the plan was to have a revolving cast, with only a few characters from previous seasons returning the next. Strangely, that started to happen later in the series, but only with characters who were introduced after season one. Virtually every main character from season one either survived or is survived by a twin, and of now the main cast is still mostly season one alumni and new introductions. Meanwhile, main characters from other seasons, such as Adam, were promptly killed off when their existance wasn't relevant, or like Monica, completely forgotten.
• Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future: This early article on the series has brief mentions of the head writer's plans for S2. And then S2 got canceled.
• Tom Servo was originally envisioned as "Beeper", an Unintelligible Silent Partner to Crow, making the robot pair a lot like R2-D2 and C-3PO.
  • Another early idea was for the show to be about an alien who watched bad movies as a way of understanding Earth's culture.
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie was originally conceived as an origin movie, revealing how Joel got to space and built the bots. However, the executives funding the movie wanted little to no riffing and it would lead to Joel's departure from the show.
    • Now, that's an interesting What Could Have Been there - how the series could have gone if Joel didn't leave!
  • The last episode for season 6 was originally planned to be Master Ninja III, but a combination of being unable to get it and it being Frank Conniff's last episode lead them to use Samson vs. the Vampire Women instead.
• Supernatural:
  • Before the disruption of the Writers Strike, Sam was going to break Dean's deal with Lilith before the end of S3. Additionally, the introduction of angels to the series was only conceived of during the Writers Strike.
  • Gordon was going to find out the events of Born Under a Bad Sign and gather a few hunters to help him kill Sam Winchester/The Anti-Christ but Sterling K. Brown was only available for two episodes in Season Three so that idea had to be scrapped.
  • Originally, in Dream A Little Dream Of Me, Jeffrey Dean Morgan (as in John Winchester) was going to appear as Dean's worst nightmare and Jason Vorhees was going to appear in Sam's dream. But neither were available so Sam had an Erotic Dream about Bela and Dean's dream became even more depressing; canceling out his assertion of self-esteem while he was saying it.
  • In Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester, where ghosts blame the boys for their deaths, Sera Gamble tried to get Jessica Moore (Sam's ex-girlfriend) instead of Ronald (Nightshifter) but it fell through. Thank God it did, though, as her angrily blaming Sam for her death would have probably reduced everyone to tears.
  • However, in Free To Be You and Me, Lucifer communicates with Sam in his dreams using Jess' form.
  • Jensen Ackles could have been cast as Sam, as that was the part he originally tried out for and he was the favorite until Jared Padalecki auditioned, at which point they decided to switch him to Dean. Though he says his interpretation of the character was pretty much the same as Jared Padalecki's.
• So Weird had its arc all planned out (including episodes about Fi's mom coming to terms with her alcoholism, one about Jack discovering that he was a knight in a past life (with help from Rebecca, who had known his past life), one about Fi helping a wandering spirit get to Heaven, and one where Fi finds a portal to Hell and goes there to rescue her dead father). Sadly, the lead actress left midway through, a replacement was cast, and the show --while still keeping its weird stories and characters -- got Lighter and Softer (making it more like a Disneyfied version of Goosebumps) instead of Darker and Edgier.
• The X-Files episode "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" was supposed to end with the CSM killing the Lone Gunmen for discovering his identity; the ending was changed because the writers wanted to leave it ambiguous how much of the story was true. In reference to this, one scene has the Cigarette Smoking Man read a story that he had published to a magazine and then complain that the ending had been totally changed.
• Once the fans revived Jericho for a second season, only 7 episodes were allotted it. It was originally going to be much broader, with the story in Cheyenne expanded and a story in New York City as well.
• Blakes Seven was slated to continue into a fifth season, with the first episode revealing that the only character to die in the dramatic shoot-out at the end of Season 4 was Blake himself. Everyone else would merely have been stunned (aside from any actors who didn't wish to return) and the season would start with the crew as prisoners of the Federation. However, it was generally felt that the series had gone as far as it could go and rather than face the cost of building new sets (since the crew's starship and base had been destroyed at the end of Season 4) the BBC decided to can the show, although ratings were still decent. As a result, everyone dies.
  • Terry Nation wanted the aliens invading the galaxy at the end of the second season to actually be the Daleks themselves. In fact, the idea of a Doctor Who/Blake's 7 crossover was popular with Tom Baker and some of the B7 cast.
• At one point in the 1970s, George Lucas approached Gene Roddenberry to ask if the Star Trek franchise was for sale....
• After the series Andromeda came to an end, its original producer Robert Hewitt Wolfe, who was forced out midway through season 2, released a "Coda" on his website detailing where he had planned to take the series in its planned five-year run. To say that his original vision was different to what made it onto screen is an understatement. So is saying that it was better.
  • Tyr would take command of the combined Nietchzean prides, Harper would become the controlling intelligence of the Consensus of Parts (by this time he would have already gotten laid and be over the crude sexual jokes), Rev Bem would become leader of the Wayists, and Beka would take the final action to defeat the Abyss using the Engine of Creation, already being A God Am I by this point due to her prolonged use of the Engine and becoming even more of one when she merges with the Abyss (though this essentially results in both of them disappearing as they Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence).
• 24 was originally a much different show than what it ended up becoming. Prior to the first season, the producers had envisioned the show as a romantic comedy with dramatic overtones about the planning of a wedding. This was changed in pre-production to a government agent trying to stop the assassination of a senator. The "wedding" angle would be revisited in the first few hours of the second season with the Warner family.
  • The first season was only fully plotted for 13 hours, because the producers weren't guaranteed a full season. When the series was given a full 24 episodes, new plotlines were drawn up for the rest of the 24 hours (including Victor Drazen - The Man Behind the Man, the reveal that Nina Myers was an enemy, and Kim's second kidnapping).
  • The most well-known example: Teri Bauer was originally supposed to survive being shot at the end of Season 1. The film crew shot three different endings: the broadcast version (where she dies), one where she is shot but pulls through, and one where she is unharmed and walks off smiling with Jack. Teri's fate was up in the air until the start of the second season, but this is a case of Executive Meddling that turned out for the best: the incident helped develop Jack Bauer as a character and firmly established 24 as a tragic series where truly Anyone Can Die.
  • Gabriel Macht was originally supposed to play Chase Edmunds in the third season. However, the producers were so impressed with James Badge Dale's audition that they hired him instead, and told Macht he would get a significant role in the next season. This never materialized. Chase was also originally slated to die as a result of a botched hand-reattachment operation at the end of the season, but this was scrapped in the script stage.
  • Originally, Ryan Chapelle was originally going to fake his death (and come back later) as a result of Stephen Saunders' demand that he be killed. However, after the script leaked online to a message board, the script was changed to kill him off permanently.
  • A well-known example: Glenn Morshower (Agent Aaron Pierce) was originally slated to die in the fifth season, but he blew the producers away with his ad-libbed response of "Is there anything else, Charles?" during a pivotal scene with President Logan late in the season. The writers hastily changed the scripts to keep him alive.
• Apparently Neil Patrick Harris was considered for the role of Simon Tam on Firefly. That's right, Neil Patrick Harris starring opposite Nathan Fillion, five years earlier than Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.
  • And they'd still be a doctor and a captain! But with Ho Yay!
  • Also, judging from the shooting script of the first episode, Simon (and possibly, by extension, River) was supposed to have an English accent (Simon uses the word "maths" instead of the American "math"). But, this could also be attributed to show creator and pilot writer Joss Whedon's upbringing and education in the UK.
  • And what if Firefly had been filmed for a second season?
• Cameron getting caught in a jeep explosion at the end of the first season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles was supposedly written in case Summer Glau wanted to leave the role at the end of the series. If she had, the resolution would have been that Cameron had her skin burned off in the fire and regrew a new one for the new actress, either like Cromartie did early in the series or by having similar abilities to the T-X of the third film.
  • One vocal part of the series Hatedom was that the series was set in the present day, instead of being set in Future War as basically Band of Brothers with cyborgs. The season two cliffhanger indicates this is what the third season would actually have been. But, of course, Fox...
  • Actually, thanks again to the Writer's Strike, the whole plot for Season 1 had to be dropped and canceled. The Jeep explsion was supposed to be the halfway point. Remember that blond chick, Cheri Westin who was mysterious, "broken goods" (as Morris called her) and seemed like she'd play a big part, but then suddenly vanished in Season 2, never to be mentioned again? Yeah, she was supposed to have a sub-plot about being the victim of blackmail from the same person who made Jordan Cowan (the cheerleader who killed herself near the beginning) commit suicide. Because John got to know her, he unwittingly got dragged into a similar type of situation where his idenity would be compromised. Guess we'll never know who made poor Jordan kill herself, or what dark secrets Cheri had...
• The writers of Lost had wildly different plans for many of the central characters. The most famous of these is the by now well-known early plan to have Jack killed by the monster in the middle of the pilot episode. Casting footage on the first season DVD shows just how differently the show might have evolved, with Matthew Fox reading as a much slicker version of Sawyer, Yunjin Kim (Sun) reading for Kate, and multiple mentions of Kate's husband, who was in the tail section. Furthermore, Jack was to be played by a "name" actor (Michael Keaton was specifically mentioned) before being offed, Dominic Monaghan auditioned for the part of Sawyer, but had the part of Charlie written in for him instead, and Nikki and Paulo were intended to become major characters. Specifically, "Exposé" was planned to be solely Nikki-centric and follow her time on the show... and only reveal at the end that the absurd stripper plot was part of a show. Luckily, they were killed off and, thankfully, this was quietly dropped.
  • Charlotte was originally meant to be an American and the role was offered to Kristen Bell, but she rejected it for a role on Heroes. So it was changed when British actress Rebecca Madder was cast. This has lead to a (implausable) theory held by some that she was meant to be revealed as Annie (given her link to DHARMA), but since Annie was American this was quietly dropped later on. Other Lost castings that never were include Lance Reddick as Eko (had to drop out due to his role on The Wire) and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Libby (which never got past them asking her).
  • Casting was going on as the pilot was being written. Sayid, Jin, Sun and Hurley were written for actors who auditioned for other parts or written in to accompany those parts in Jin's case. It was not originally decided who would be a regular cast member, Rose or Claire, and on the DVD you can see a cast promo picture getting taken with L Scott Caldwell instead of Emilie de Ravin. Cadwell dropped out for much of the season thanks to her husband's cancer (later on, this would be the inspiration for Rose's backstory). They were later on still unsure if they wanted to keep on Claire permanently after the kidnapping, hence why de Ravin was on a holding contract until Claire returned (namely, they were only credited when they appeared while everyone else was credited regardless).
  • Mr Eko was meant to be one of the most important characters on the show, with a arc that would cover the rest of the series. Then the actor left. Though what exactly this arc entails and who it was given to is unknown, the most likely option is that the MIB-as-Locke arc was meant for him given Eko's link to the Smoke Monster.
    • Likewise, Ilana was meant to have a big part in the final season-in fact, she was going to be Jacob's daughter! But this was cut and scenes were refilmed when they decided they didn't have enough time for this. This explains her promotion to regular, despite not having any development or much importance outside of "Dr Linus" and her abrupt death and abscence from the finale.
      • And Caesar was meant to have a regular, and fairly major role in the final season. But the actor turned down more Lost in favor of G.I. Joe, so Caesar's abrupt death stuck and his character became an unintentional red herring.
  • Daniel, Charlotte and Miles were originally planned as guest stars who would last eight episodes, tops. Thanks to how awesomely "Confirmed Dead" turned out, they were promoted to regulars for the rest of season 4 and beyond; while Charlotte was killed off early in season 5 and Daniel was killed off at the end of the season, Miles is still around and Frank has also made the jump to regular for season 6.
  • After the idea of the reset was introduced, the producers considered season 6 both featuring no reset/alternate timeline of any kind or a complete reset. After deciding both approaches were deficient, they decided to do both. In fact, they decided to both "do both" and "not do both" by having the alternate timeline in fact be a waiting room for the afterlife rather than an actual alternate timeline, while still having it take place in a what-if-the-plane-never-crashed scenario.
• In an early version of the script for the Quantum Leap episode that introduced Alia, the "Evil Leaper", the major difference from the aired version occurred at the end. Alia has a gun on Sam, and is being ordered to kill him. Sam talks her down, appealing to her better nature, and gets the gun from her. Then, Sam points the gun at Alia! He tells her that he can't let her go, that the "stakes are too high." Al is very encouraging of this development, and Ziggy even says that Sam has to shoot her to protect the timeline. Alia, needless to say, feels a tad betrayed. Then she Leaps out. One can only presume that sanity prevailed, because this out-of-character display of hypocrisy never made it to air.
• In the beginning, Saban's Masked Rider was supposed to be a very different show. Several big differences included Edenoi exploding, no Ferbus, a different Albee and Molly, different voices for Chopper & Magno, no original villain footage... Yet, Ted Jan Roberts is still Dex. As seen in this pilot.
• The pilot for Chuck originally had Natalie Martinez cast as a neighbor and love interest for Chuck Bartowski. The character, Kayla Hart, was dropped because the show's cocreators thought she made the plot too complicated. (They also realized it was unlikely a Nerd Herder would have two women pining over him.) Her photo was released with some early cast promo shots.
  • Word has it that originally the character of Ellie was conceived as a friend of Chuck's, not his sister - leading to some unintentional Incest Subtext in the pilot.
• Torchwood: Children of Earth was originally going to have Mickey and Martha on the team, but this was unfortunately scrapped due to actors' scheduling conflicts.
• The original pilot of Dollhouse was quite different and is available as an extra on the last disc of the Season One DVD set. Several scenes from it were placed in episodes 2-5. Interestingly, in this version Saunders almost can't be a doll, indicating that this was not a plot point planned from the beginning. And Topher doesn't approve of altruistic pro bono engagements, whereas he himself is behind one in the aired episode "Briar Rose".
• Desperate Housewives had a weird take on an inversion early on. Throughout season 1, there was subtle build-up to a sub-plot, picked up by many fans, that Tom Scavo is a bigamist. When this eventually went nowhere, creator Marc Cherry went on the record, explaining that they didn't feel it was right for Tom's character to be a cheater. Season and a half later, once the audience dropped its guard, a version of the plot - that Tom had a daughter by a pre-marital one-night stand - was bombarded into the show, taking everyone by surprise.
• The original ending of Harper's Island featured Serial Killer Henry Dunn getting away with the murders he commits and winning the heart of the protagonist Abby Mills, who doesn't have a clue. Executive Meddling said no.
• In the late nineties, there was talk of resurrecting the cult Channel 4 gameshow Wanted with celebrities as a one-off tie-in for Comic Relief- instead, we got the first Celebrity Big Brother.
• The original press information for Stargate Atlantis included a scientist called Dr. Benjamin Ingram, African Canadian. They brought back Dr. Rodney McKay from SG-1 instead.
• It looked like the Stargate Verse was set for a happy ending, with a film planned where the Stargate program was going to be made public. But thanks to the SyFy channel messing with Universe's schedule, The IP is doomed. It's probably not going to get a proper ending.
• The DVD commentaries for Too Good to Last mid-90's show Profit have co-creators David Greenwalt and John McNamara talking about their plans for the Season Two arcs:
  • Joanne would never have survived that trip to Ireland; the phone booth she was in during her last scene in "Forgiveness" would have been targeted by an IRA bomb - arranged by Jim Profit, of course.
  • Pete Gracen would have been a senator, then he and Nora would have eventually divorced.
  • Jim Profit, a full 10 years before Don Draper, would have been revealed to have pulled a Martin Guerre, and gone back to kill the man whose identity he stole.
  • Jim would have engineered the poisoning of Chaz Gracen (who also would have still been married to Bobbie), and convinced him that his father was trying to kill him. He would then have eliminated Gracen Senior, thus reconciling Chaz and Pete.
• As much as Coy and Vance Duke were disliked amongst The Dukes of Hazzard fans, the idea of having all FIVE Duke cousins working together would have been pretty cool.
• Creator Dan Knauf dropped a few bombshells during a convention of how the now-canceled season three of Carnivale would have started:
  • Both Ben and Justin would have survived their apparent "deaths" from the finale. Ben would have ended up like Management, crippled and surviving on his own magic, manipulating the Carnivale to his own purposes. Justin would have married Sofie, and supposedly had a child with her, though whether he ever found out she was his daughter was not mentioned. He would not have had the power he once had, though: the shrapnel near his heart would have severely weakened him, reducing him to a figurehead and leaving Sofie and Iris as the true powers of the Ministry.
  • Jonesy would also have survived the gunshot wound. He would have returned to baseball to play for the Yankees, and stayed married to Libby.
  • The third season's theme would have been Sofie's internal struggle of her good, human, side and her evil Omega side.
  • The opening scene would have been a small boy of about three, running through the New Caanan camp. He would have approached Justin, flanked by Sofie and Iris, and called him "Daddy". The question of his parentage - Sofie or Iris as his mother, Ben or Justin as his father - would have been a driving plot point.
• Supposedly Scrubs initially planned, if the show wound up being canceled after or during its first season to do a reveal in its final episode that the Janitor was actually a figment of JD's imagination; as a result, they tried to avoid having him interact with anyone else. The show resolutely failed to get canceled, and eventually the actor playing the Janitor begged the writers to let him interact with other people, so this idea was dropped.
• The sci-fi series Odyssey 5 was supposed to end up with humanity changing into human-AI hybrids, which is certainly bold. Given the uneven writing of the show, I'm not sure if they could have pulled it off. Anyway, it was cancelled after one season.
• In the book Batman Begins and the Comics, released in 2005, Julian Darius talks about a proposed Bruce Wayne spinoff series. The show would have run for five to six seasons, and followed Wayne as he matured from a rambunctious 17-year old kid to a serious young man, and follow his travels from Gotham City to various parts of the world (where he would train). At some point late in the series, he would discover a large cavern under Wayne Manor, and he, Lucius Fox and several Polish workers in blacked-out buses would construct the Batcave. Wayne would have also met early versions of The Joker, Harleen Quinzel, Jonathan Crane and Edward Nygma, as well as Clark Kent. In the end, the rise of the big-budget superhero film (X-Men came out in 2000) and an aborted plan for a film adaptation of Frank Miller's Year One script, as well as the reboot of the film franchise in 2005 killed this series stone-dead. Instead, Alfred Gough and his production team chose to create Smallville instead.
• The cancelled TV adaptation of the Global Frequency comic book series would have seen storylines and concepts from the source material being adapted (including the Le Parkour one-shot, where a female member of the organization must race across London and stop a madman who plans to infect the city with the Ebola Virus) as well as episodes scripted by heavyweight comic writers, including series creator Warren Ellis.
• If Defying Gravity had lasted beyond the first season, several plot threads would have been revealed. The team would obtain all of the "fractal objects" (like Beta) over the course of the show. Earth would have been revealed as a very messed-up place. Season three would have taken place either partially or completely on Mars, with two characters (Sharon and Walker) still alive on the planet when the team arrived. Nadia would have been revealed as a hermaphrodite (explaining fan theories) and would have turned into a man because of exposure to the fractal objects, and Goss would have a change of heart and end up helping the team at one point.
• Friends had been planned to include Monica and Joey as a (possibly beta) couple, toying with the idea since the pilot (having them saying the two first lines and Joey being critical about her sleeping with Paul), then again at the fifth episode (when they pretended to be a couple) and at the eight (IIRC) by Phoebe commenting on how Monica'd had a crush on him. After the writers tried many different potential-coupling light sub-plots or lines during the first seasons, it was decided that Monica was better off with Chandler (starting season 5) and Joey would be left with UST with Phoebe.
  • I recall hearing a commentary on one of the DVDs (don't ask which one, I haven't a clue) that, in the very beginning, Monica and Joey were intended to be the alpha couple. Ross and Rachel ended up being far more interesting to write and the rest is history.
  • More with Friends, originally Chandler was supposed to be gay, perhaps explaining why other characters keep mistaking him for gay.
  • Another idea was for the episode featuring Phoebe's wedding to confirm that she and Joey had had a "friends with benefits" relationship for years before she met Mike. The actors liked the idea of this, but it was scrapped.
  • The opening title scene was originally supposed to show the main cast playing around/goofing off in the water fountain, but this was only used once in the pilot episode and scrapped afterwards due to the producers feeling that the scene showed the cast as a closed group of friends that might snub anyone outside their group. All of the opening title scenes afterwards show a mixture of the fountain scene and scenes from other episodes.
• Wizards of Waverly Place: Justin was originally meant to be a friend of Alex, and not her brother.
  • This isn't mentioning the thousands of Jalex fics, a fandom that supports this incestous pair in a childrens show, a bunch of viewers who obtained unwanted No Yay, and two teenage actors who can't help their UST.
• Sonny With a Chance was originally intended to play up a Nico/Sonny/Chad love triangle. For example, the pilot doesn't include Chad, and has Nico kissing Sonny's hand. A few hints of the Nico/Sonny side of the triangle survived into the 1st season scripts, but on the whole the show is only ever going to be Sonny/Chad.
  • Before that, the series was going to be called Welcome To Mollywood, and Sonny was originally called Molly.
    • It was also briefly Welcome to Holliwood with Demi Lovato's character being named Holli (yes, it was spelled with an "i") before they settled on the final show title. YMMV on whether or not they chose the best title.
  • The episodes that were going to be filmed after the Camp Rock 2 Tour were going to deal with the damaged Sonny/Chad relationship, but then Demi had a breakdown and assaulted a dancer on the tour and ended up going to rehab so the episodes were retooled to focus more on the sketches because it's not really Sonny With A Chance without Sonny. Originally, Demi was supposed to go back to work after rehab, but she decided to focus on her personal problems and her music career so the entire show was retooled into a defictionalized version of the Show Within a Show, So Random. Unfortunately, it seems as though we're never going to get to see Sonny and Chad get back together.
• Greg Rucka claims that there was enough serious love of Gotham Central by not just DC brass but by WB execs that a series was almost assured. Its not quite clear why it never got off the ground.
• For the show Pushing Daisies, the character of Olive Shnook was originally planned as a lesbian and a former popup-book maker before becoming a waitress instead of a former horse jockey.
  • The pop-up book creator concept was actually used with a minor character from the episode "Smell of Success" who had written some very bizarre pop-up books.
• Only Fools and Horses: Jim Broadbent (who would later appear in a minor recurring role as Roy Slater), Enn Reitel, Robin Nedwell, and Billy Murray were all considered possible candidates for the role of Del Boy Trotter, before it went to David Jason.
  • The fifth season finale "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" was originally wriiten as the very last OFAH episode with Del leaving England to go run a car business with his old friend Jumbo Mills in Australia, therefore paving the way for a spin-off series called Hot-Rod, featuring Rodney's attempts to survive on his own with help from Mickey Pearce.
• Not only was Glee originally going to be a movie, it was a bit more dark with actual drug use and a sexual student-teacher relationship. Also there was going to be an Indian character named Ranjit. When Chris Colfer came in to audition, the writers made up a character for him and Ranjit was completely written out. Sure, Chris is great as Kurt, but you can't help wondering what Ranjit would have been like...
  • The original pilot script for Glee also did not include Sue Sylvester or any analogous character. She was written in because a higher-up suggested that the story needed an antagonist (a rare occasion of Executive Meddling getting something right?) and was not originally intended to be a regular character until another project of Jane Lynch's fell through.
  • Rumors have it as well that Sam was originally was supposed to be Kurt's football-playing boyfriend, but Ryan Murphy scrapped that idea after it got spread around the web. Eventually Blaine was written in as a potential love interest for Kurt.
  • Fandom-wise: One of Kurt and Blaine's portmanteau couple names would probably have been Burt, if it hadn't been for the fact that that is the name of Kurt's dad.
• After the finale of Ashes to Ashes aired, producer Matthew Graham gave an interview (and you can consider yourself warned for massive spoilers) where he talked about the three possible endings the writers had considered, and one alternate version to the third they almost shot before going with the version they chose:
  • Ending #1: Alex woke up in 2008, the world of 1981-1983 was all a dream. Discarded because "we didn't think anyone would want that because we didn't want that with Sam".
  • Ending #2: Alex woke up, but chose to "go back" by killing herself, which would have been a repeat of how Life On Mars ended.
  • Ending #3: Alex is dead and has to move on with her existence, which is the one they chose. There was almost a cameo from John Simm, reprising his role as Sam Tyler, which they storyboarded and apparently everyone liked. Sam would have walked out of the Railway Arms at the end, instead of Nelson, and the ending was ultimately discarded because "it would steal all of Keeley's thunder, it would undermine Ashes as a show and also Sam's supposed to be dead, so he should be in heaven. It suddenly made him seem like a superhero – he could go from purgatory to heaven and back again."
• In 1969, The Three Stooges (Moe, Larry, and Curly-Joe) filmed a pilot episode for a TV series called Kook's Tour, which would have featured the "retired" Stooges traveling around the world, with every episode filmed on location. Larry Fine, however, suffered a stroke in 1970, that killed his acting career and plans for the TV series. Larry died in January 1975 after a second stroke that left him in a coma. Moe planned to continue The Three Stooges, with Emil filling in for Larry, but Moe died in mid-1975. As a result, the pilot episode of "Kook's Tour" (titled "Kook's Tour") is the last Three Stooges short.
• Bruce Lee as Kwai Chang Caine in Kung Fu.
• A Venezuelan one: the (in)famous early nineties Soap Opera Por Estas Calles originally was, and was promoted in the pre-air sales as, a typical pink soap named "Eva Luna", about a Wrongly Accused girl who had to hide and change her name, taking the titular name for herself. They even had filmed several chapter when the 1992 coup attempt against the president happened and suddenly there wasn't the right atmosphere for a "normal" soap. Then the head writer decided to retool the story to take place in The Present Day instead of the atemporal Soap Opera Time, and go for realism and cynicism, expanding the cast and introducing Loads and Loads of Characters. The Exceutives loved it so much that immediately ordered the erase of the already filmed chapters. The only things that survived from the original were the already casted actor, and the plot about the heroine being wrongly acussed and changing her name while hiding, now made gritty and dark.
  • More fun: one of the characters of Por Estas Calles was "El Hombre de la Etiqueta" (The Tag Man), a ex-policeman turned vigilante Serial Killer after the murder of his son, going for common crooks and placing a morgue tag with the word "Irrecuperable ("unreedemeable")" on his victims. Despite being the main enemy of the heroine (whom he mistakenly believed the real muder of his son), the character gained a Misaimed Fandom of his own. Had the soap not having had enough Executive Meddling to make the original head writter resign, he would have had a Redemption Equals Death destiny, instead of the Karma Houdini ending he eventually got.
• Mortal Kombat Conquest was supposed to resume for a second season after the Kill'Em All ending, but money ran out suddenly and they couldn't make it.
• Unnatural History had ended after only one season, possibly (hopefully only temporarily delayed instead of) canning these plots and plot threads: "the Gobi adventure ... involving both the tomb of that most famous of all Mongolians and the rumored Mongolian death worm ... followed up by a Rashomon 'what I did this summer' reflection ... the triangular relationship between the boys and Maggie gets increasingly more complicated, Henry's long thought-to-be-dead g.f. reappears (someone with more skills than he's got and anger issues) — as well as Jasper's mother."
• Sherman Hemsley or Ol' Dirty Bastard as Mister Ed?
• At one point, there were plans for the Grand Finale of Seinfeld to end with a scene where the Main Characters, after spending a year in prison, would gather at the coffee shop, looking much worse for wear, and George would comment, "Well, that was brutal."
• Farscape: Chiana was originally intended to have been killed by Durka in her very first episode, but the writers liked Gigi Edgley so much that it was Only a Flesh Wound. Zhaan was originally a male character called Zen. Also, in very early versions of the storyline, Scorpius would have been a puppet character, and Crais's sidekick.
  • Reported possibilities for the aborted Season Five as well as the main Scarran-Sebacean arc that got wrapped up as "The Peacekeeper Wars": return appearances by previous villains Furlow and Natira, and the long-awaited Chiana-centric plot arc picking up on the Nebari and their plan for galactic domination through VD.
• Young Jeezy, not Saigon, was the rapper originally slated to be managed by Turtle on Entourage.
• In Survivor, Shane Powers was intended to be on Heroes vs. Villains, but was dropped in favour of Russell Hantz, who more or less wound up continuing his Samoa adventures (while somehow knowing he didn't win the latter) and had the advantage of nobody actually really knowing who he was, similar to how Amanda and James had the advantage in Micronesia and Rupert in All stars.
  • A player quit Fiji before filming even began so it was the only cast to be an odd number.
  • Similarly, Shane and Sandra amongst others were intended to return in Micronesia.
  • The fourth season, which ended up taking place in the Marquesas Islands, was originally supposed to have taken place in the country of Jordan. Due to the fact that 9/11 had occurred less than two months before the contestants were supposed to be shipped out, the idea of sending civilians to a Middle Eastern country to play on a game show was scrapped for obvious reasons.
• In Big Brother 12 US, there was a fourteenth houseguest named "Paula" who quit during sequester and wasn't replaced. It's likely this is why the first head of household competition had to have Andrew sit out as the odd-man out. (He got immunity for the first week, though.)
  • And in Big Brother 8 US, Jessica had a completely different nemesis who quit and was replaced with Carol. This nemesis was actually a dance rival of hers; rather than Carol who was an ex friend from high school and not as much of a nemesis compared to the other two. (ie, Carol's response was just a shrug when she saw Jessica, and Jessica had to think of what they had against each other.)
• The famous Telenovela La Señora de cárdenas by late Jose Ignacio Cabrujas was going to end with the titular Mrs. Cardenas going back with the terrible husband she has left, after his presumed redemption; but then, in a strange variant of But I Play One on TV, many fans began to write and even tell Cabrujas in the supermarket queque "Please, don't make her come back with that Jerkass". Cabrujas then decided to get his protagonist hook up with another love interest instead.
• Two words: Mean Jeans
• Several different people could've been the host of Family Feud. Geoff Edwards confirmed on the newsgroup alt.tv.game-shows that he had been tapped to host the original Feud in 1976, but he was committed to another series at the time, so Richard Dawson got the job. Dawson confirmed in a 2010 interview that William Shatner got a crack, and it is believed that Jack Narz of Concentration fame was in the running at one point. Joe Namath auditioned for the 1988 revival, which went to Ray Combs. And Dolly Parton auditioned for the 1999 revival, for which Louie Anderson got the nod. (Anderson was replaced by Richard Karn, then John O'Hurley, then Steve Harvey.)
• Bob Hilton could have ended up announcing The Price Is Right after Johnny Olson's death, instead of Rod Roddy. However, Hilton declined so he could host two game show pilots, which ended up not selling. Given that Hilton is only in his early 60s now, he could still be announcing today had he gotten the nod in 1985.
  • Similarly, the rotation of announcers after Rod's 2003 death included a radio news anchor named Art Sanders. Host Bob Barker really wanted Art to become the new announcer, and almost hired him on the spot. Had either of these situations come to be, then Rich Fields (who announced from 2004-2010) wouldn't have gotten his big break.
  • After Bob Barker's retirement in 2007, several people auditioned for the show, including Mexican TV personality Marco Antonio Regil (who hosted Mexico's version of Price years before), Rosie O'Donnell and experienced game show hosts Todd Newton, Mark L. Walberg and |Marc Summers. Drew Carey got the part.
    • The producer's first choice for Barker's replacement? Dan Patrick, who turned the job down.
• Had Titus not been Screwed by the Network, the fourth season would've featured Dave and Tommy in their own Neutral Space episodes, as they did with Papa Titus in season 2, and with Erin in season 3.
• Originally, Divine (yes, that Divine) was going to play Peggy's mother on Married... with Children, but that plan was quashed by his untimely death. This is why we never actually see Peggy's mom on the show; out of respect.
• Originally, the British panel game QI was to be hosted by Michael Palin, with Stephen Fry and Alan Davies as team captains.
• Buckaroo Banzai: Ancient Secrets and New Mysteries. A concept pilot was created using CGI (it's available on the DVD release of the movie); but it never got off the ground.
• Degrassi has a few. Two which revolve around Adam are: He was supposed to be an androgynous lesbian named Zoe, and his birth name was originally not Gracie (it was Chelsea).
  • YMMV on Zoe: only Word of God would confirm it, but that might've been a way for them to audition different girls for the role while remaining tight-lipped about their plans to introduce a transgender character.
  • Heck, if they had stuck with the original concept of Ready, Willing and Wired there'd be no adults with backstories, the Emma character wouldn't necessarily have been product-of-a-teen pregnancy Emma and the setting would've been quite explicitly a tech magnet school, forcing them to stick with the sort of kids who could get into a somewhat selective school...
  • The S11 character concieved as "Noah" was renamed Jake when Justin Kelly was cast in the role ^[3].
• According to this interview, Mahou Sentai Magiranger could have been the first Super Sentai to feature a female red ranger.
  • Sentai actors who have confirmed that they auditioned for other roles in tokusatsu include Mikiho Niwa (auditioned for BoukenPink, ended up as GoseiYellow), Tsuyoshi Hayashi (auditioned for AbareKiller, ended up as DekaBlue) and Yasuhisa Furuhara (auditioned for Kamen Rider Sasword and BoukenSilver, ended up as Go-on RED (film)).
  • Idol Singer Shoko "Shokotan" Nakagawa, a big fan of Sentai, has auditioned to play a Pink Ranger on the show several times but never been cast - reportedly due to a lack of gymnastic ability. She did make a guest appearance as an alien in Dekaranger.
  • Toei considered making a sequel or second series of Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger, but abandoned the idea.
  • Naruhisa Arakawa, writer of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, stated in an interview that his original idea for Don's backstory was for Don to have witnessed his father's horrific death at the hands of Zangyack. This was dropped in favor of having Don be "an ordinary guy."
  • Dekaranger's original planned title was "Sirenger", but Toei was denied the copyright because there was already an anime with that name.
  • Chouriki Sentai Ohranger was meant to have been a much darker season, but had to have a Retool early in its run after the Tokyo sarin gas attacks. Some elements of the show involving superpowers and ancient civilizations were felt to be too similar to the claims made by the Aum Shinrikyo cult.
  • Kagaku Sentai Dynaman was originally planned to be a baseball-themed Sentai team before it was changed to be about science and Stuff Blowing Up. However, the team's suits still somewhat resemble baseball uniforms.
  • Gosei Sentai Dairanger might have been called "Daikenger" instead.
• VR Troopers was originally titled Cybertron. It would have starred Jason David Frank in the same role Brad Hawkings would play later on. The karate master would have been the one to give Jason's character the Cybertron powers and Jason's character would have been bothered by a Bulk and Skull-type duo. The villain Grimlock would have still been there. However, the popularity of Jason's role as Tommy on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers would lead him to return to the series and Brad Hawkings would take his role. Cybertron's theme song ended up being reworked as the MMPR theme "Go Green Ranger Go" and Cybertron itself would be renamed to the well-known VR Troopers after Hasbro complained.
• Kamen Rider:
  • Kamen Rider Hibiki was originally to show Asumu becoming an Oni in the final episode, along with Kiriya. A suit had been put together for him, but due to extensive Executive Meddling, the scenes weren't included in what became the rewritten ending, and Asumu's Oni suit was scrapped for parts to enhance Kiriya's. This is partially remedied in the Hibiki's World episodes of Kamen Rider Decade, where Hibiki dies and Asumu becomes an Oni in his place.
    • Hibiki could apply for this all around, thanks to the Executive Meddling that afflicted its latter portion and forced them to focus on selling toys more than telling a story.
  • Kamen Rider Double was originally going to take place in Suito, a flooded city a la Venice. The idea was scrapped and eventually replaced with the much less budget-consuming (and ecologically-correct) "windy city" of Fuuto.
  • According to Word of God, Kamen Rider OOO was supposed to have Dr Maki be the villain of the second arc and then be killed off around episode 30, with Ankh as the final villain of the series. Instead, Maki is the final villain and Ankh sacrifices himself to give Eiji his Core Medals.
    • Date was also supposed to die, be revived as a homunculus (much like Nobunaga in Movie Wars Core) and become a Greeed. The producer has also confirmed that she wasn't originally planning for Eiji to turn into a Greeed, but changed this later on.
    • Eiji was conceived as a more cynical type of character akin to Takumi from Kamen Rider Faiz. The characterization was changed after Shu Watanabe was cast in the role and it was felt he would fit better as a Nice Guy hero.
  • Early pre-release info for Kamen Rider Fourze stated that the Kamen Rider club would investigate the legends of Kamen Riders in their town, with guest appearances from past heroes. This got as far as Fourze's Early-Bird Cameo in the Kamen Rider OOO movie (where Gentaro leaves suddenly because he's late for club activities) but the producers later confirmed it had been scrapped because the idea was too much like Decade (and possibly Gokaiger as well). Instead, the club functions to support Fourze, with Shout Outs to previous heroes but no guest stars.
    • The character of Hayami/Libra Zodiarts was originally slated to appear for only a few episodes, but his run in the show was later extended. The same thing happened with Bishop from Kamen Rider Kiva, whose character was kept on due to his popularity with fans.
• Dads Army:
  • John Le Mesurier was initially approached to play Mainwaring and Arthur Lowe for Wilson, but it was decided they worked much better in the opposite roles.
  • Writer Jimmy Perry wanted to play Walker, but worried that it might cause friction with the rest of the cast. Instead he made a guest appearance as a pierside entertainer in a series 1 episode.
  • Jack Haig was considered for the role of Jones, and did end up taking over the role for part of the stage show tour while Clive Dunn had other commitments.
  • The show was to include a character called Private Bracewell as a member of the main cast. He did appear in the first episode, but was cut because the writers felt his character was too much like Godfrey's.
  • Miss King, a character who appeared in the first series, was intended to have had a larger role as the Fan Service character of the cast. For whatever reason, it didn't work out and she vanished after series one, with the fanservice position largely taken over by Mrs Pike.
  • An American adaptation of the show called The Rear Guard was planned, but scrapped when the pilot wasn't successful.
• The Lois and Clark episode "Soul Mates" was fun, but the Reincarnation Romance would have made a heck of a lot more sense if John Shea had been available to play Clark's eternal archenemy who wants to marry Lois. The fact Tempus doesn't really fit the role is even Lampshaded:

Lois: I'm not saying I'm buying into any of this stuff yet, but it is kind of bizarre that Tempus, of all people, is behind the curse. I mean, Lex Luthor, I could understand, but...

• • Also, Kevin Sorbo was considered for the role of Superman.
• Rome had plans for five full seasons. If not for the cancellation at the end of season 2, the second and following seasons could have depicted history with the same eye for details as the first one. To quote creator Bruno Heller:

"The second [season] was going to end with the death of Brutus. Third and fourth season would be set in Egypt. Fifth was going to be the rise of the messiah in Palestine. But because we got the heads-up that the second season would be it, I telescoped the third and fourth season into the second one, which accounts for the blazing speed we go through history near the end."

• Prior to starring in Wizards of Waverly Place, Selena Gomez would have been cast in a Lizzie McGuire spin-off series called What's Stevie Thinking?" as the titular Stevie, Miranda Sanchez's sister a pilot episode was filmed, but not picked up.
  • She was also cast in a "Suite Life Of Zack And Cody" spinoff called Arwin, following the misadventures of the Adult Child repairman. Again, a pilot episode was filmed, but the show was not picked up.
• The Adam West Batman was cancelled by ABC, but NBC was willing to pick up the show for a fourth season. Unfortunately, all of the sets had been destroyed just a week before and NBC was unwilling to pay for new sets.
• The 1996 TV-movie adaptation of Generation X was supposed to be a pilot for a proposed TV series, but the movie's negative reception killed this idea in its tracks. Considering the quality of said movie, this is probably a good thing. Still, a live-action TV show based on an X Men spinoff would have been interesting.
• The Malcolm in the Middle episode in which the family took a vacation to a water park leaving ear-infected Dewey behind with a babysitter (played by Bea Arthur) was originally going to culminate with the sitter dyeing Dewey's hair black and calling him "Pepe" as they head for the Mexican border. The producers found this too dark and disturbing, so they instead had the sitter die of a sudden heart attack during a dance together.
• Hannah Montana:
  • In its development stages, the show was to be set in school and involve a movie star, not a pop singer. It was to be called Better Days and be a star vehicle for Alyson Stoner of Camp Rock fame. JoAnna "JoJo" LeVesque, Jordan McCoy of American Juniors, and Taylor Momsen of Gossip Girl were also considered for the role.
  • Miley Cyrus had originally auditioned for The Lilly Truscott role, which went to Emily Osment. And Lilly's last name was to be "Romero".
  • "Anna Cabana", "Alexis Texas" and "Samantha York" were to be the names of the pop singer alter ego, until Miley suggested "Hannah Montana".
  • The creators early on believed that it would be hard for then 13-year old Cyrus to remember so many aliases, and changed the protagonist's name from Chloe to Miley to make it easier.
    • And it was Zoe before that. The name was changed because it was too close to the name of the title character in rival network, Nickelodeon's Zoey101.
  • Billy Ray Cyrus only turned up to offer moral support and help his daughter with her lines at the audition. He did not want to play the dad, but Disney felt his Real Life rapport with Miley was convincing and entertaining enough for him to get him the role of Robby Ray.
• Had Veronica Mars gotten a fourth season, the plan was a Retool into "Veronica Mars: FBI Trainee.". The new season would fire everyone except Kristen Bell and go with an all new cast. A short was included on the Season 3 DVD set
• Benson's eighth season would've fetured Gene Gatling winning re-election and Benson moving on to become a senator (it wasn't made clear whether this meant "state senator" or "U.S. senator").
• Sliders: The idea was thrown around of revealing that Maggie's biological parents were Colonel Rickman and her universe's version of Wade (this would have meant Maggie's universe was in the future compared to ours).
  • There was a proposed episode that would have shown what happened to Wade after she was taken to a Kromagg breeding camp without Sabrina Lloyd having to return to the show, via the gang coming upon a device that made them experience past events from the perspective of other people. Maggie would have been Wade, Diana would have been Mrs. Mallory, Mallory would have been a Humagg soldier in love with Wade, and Rembrandt would have been a sympathetic Kromagg scientist.
• Forever Knight's writers wanted to take the focus off Nick's redemption in season 3. They tried to write out both Janette and Natalie, but Geraint Wyn Davies threatened to quit if Natalie was taken out. There was also going to be a promotion to captain for Schanke, but John Kapelos turned it down.
  • The ending was originally to have Lacroix saying the last few lines of Romeo and Juliet at the very end, but this was nixed because the producers wanted the show just open ended enough to avoid major hurt in syndication.
• Highlander the Series wanted a spinoff with a new female immortal, and pitched quite a few of them in season six. But none clicked and despite initially not wanting Amanda as the lead, they got her anyway.
  • The sesaon six plot was originally going to be made as a movie, set 20 years after Richie's death.
  • Methos was originally a short-term character for season 3, but the fans liked him so much he was kept.
  • Tessa's death wasn't originally planned, but had to be written in when Alexandra Vandernoot chose to leave the show.
  • Adrian Paul could have played a re-cast Connor MacLeod. The writers throw this around for a while in the beginning, and even Adrian didn't know after casting whether he'd play the movie character or a new one.
    • Also, Ron Perlman auditioned for the part of Duncan. He did show up in season 5's "The Messenger" as the false Methos.
• Tracker was originally written with Mel and a younger sister, but the sister was replaced by Jess.
• CSI's writers originally planned to go on longer with Grissom's otosclerosis, and possibly have it eventually force him into retirement, but they got a lot of letters about the fact that the condition is easily repaired with surgery, and finished the arc in season 3.
  • It appears that Ray Langston's character was retooled after William Petersen announced his departure. An issue of the short-lived CSI official magazine talks of him being a younger character with a different last name who was a replacement for Warrick. The secret struggle thing was always there, though.
  • Nick and Catherine were going to be paired up from the beginning, and there's even stills of a cut kiss scene that still exist. This was scrapped because it would seem too much like Nick was just her boy-toy.
  • Both Gil Grissom and Mac Taylor from CSI: NY had different names originally, but both actors changed them-William Petersen dubbed his character 'Grissom' after astronaut Gus Grissom because he was a fan of the US space program. Gary Sinise used his son's nickname, Mac (short for Mc Canna) and 'Taylor' after his Forrest Gump character. (leading to, unsurprisingly, a few Epileptic Trees as a result).
• Fox at one point had plans to turn My Network TV into an over-the-air version of Fox News. Is it no surprise that this didn't happen?
• ER: Carol Hathaway was supposed to die from her drug overdose--indeed, dialogue in the episode indicates that chances of recovery are slim--but test audiences liked her character and were intrigued by the hints of a romantic past with Doug Ross, and so, she was revived. The character went on to be one of the show's most popular, Doug & Carol one of its (and TV's) best pairings, and her portrayer received an Emmy. This was even lampshaded by Carol's portrayer, Julianna Marguiles, upon accepting her award, who noted, "A year ago at this time, I was dead."
• The $10,000 Pyramid originally had ten boxes on the big Pyramid, each with a subject the contestant had to identify in 60 seconds (which is what TV Guide printed in their synopsis the week it premiered on CBS). Two nights before taping the pilot, creator Bob Stewart realized that there was no way anyone could get ten subjects in 60 seconds, so he had a 2x4 plank nailed over the bottom four squares.
• In the 1980s, there was going to be a TV movie that would unite the casts of Marvel's two biggest live-action shows of the previous decade: The Incredible Hulk and The Amazing Spider-Man.

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Back to What Could Have Been

1. ↑ Eight months after actor Michael O'Hare's death in 2012, Straczynski admitted (with O'Hare's permission) that the real reason Sinclair was dropped was that O'Hare had begun suffering paranoid delusions and hallucinations during the filming of the first season. O'Hare's departure from the show was voluntary and amicable (JMS had offered to put the show on hiatus while he was treated, but O'Hare declined the offer).
2. ↑ remnants of this still appear in the first episode, e.g. "...What's an iguana?"
3. ↑ His character on The Latest Buzz had been named Noah