Christopher McDonald, Janine Turner, Cameron Finley, and Erik von Detten in Leave It to Beaver (1997)

Every year, a number of television pilots are filmed -- "test episodes" for potential new shows. Some of them get ordered to series, and those pilot episodes often become episode #1 of the new show. Others, however, are unable to hurdle that barrier and remain unsold -- not picked up as a full television series.

Note that "unsold" does not necessarily equate to "unaired" -- many of the pilots listed here have aired on tv, either as a backdoor pilot (shown as a tv movie, or as an episode of an already-running tv show from which it was intended to spin off) or "burned off" (aired as a tv movie or a one-off episode among the summer reruns, or incorporated into one of several anthology tv series that consisted entirely of rejected pilots). Others have seen the light of day as extra features on DVDs, or straight-to-video releases, or in a few cases were even bumped up to theatrical releases.

I've started moving ones I've seen and/or have (i.e., I know they're at least marginally available) to the top of the list -- so far that's #s 1-676.

Sources: Unsold Television Pilots, Lee Goldberg. Movies Made for Television, 1964-2004 and 2005-2009, Alvin H. Marill. Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925-2007 and Encyclopedia of Television Pilots, 1937-2019 and Encyclopedia of Unaired Television Pilots, 1945-2018, Vincent Terrace. Various selective-subject (science fiction, animation, etc.) TV books. Various internet resources - IMDb, TCMDb, TheFutonCritic, etc. etc. etc.

(A work in progress.)

Cops, spies, private eyes and otherwise from movies and TV series (famous and short-lived) of all times, include if it is mixed with another genres as fantasy or sci-fi. No special order.

Noah Beery Jr. and James Garner in The Rockford Files (1974)

Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Berenger, Michael Caine, Lukas Haas, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Elliot Page, Ken Watanabe, and Dileep Rao in Inception (2010)

Barbara Bain, Martin Landau, Peter Graves, Peter Lupus, and Greg Morris in Mission: Impossible (1966)

Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman, Ashley Tisdale, Vanessa Hudgens, Zac Efron, and Lucas Grabeel in High School Musical (2006)

Charles Manson in Will You Kill for Me? Charles Manson and His Followers (2008)

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