Keep ‘Em Peeled

As long-time readers of this site will know, I have a fascination with television pilots. Let’s be specific about what I mean, here: a true pilot isn’t just the first episode of a TV show. It’s something made separately from the rest of the series, as a first attempt at an idea. I find those first attempts endlessly interesting. These pilots make their way to an audience in many different ways. Sometimes, as with Hi-de-Hi!, they are literally transmitted as a one-off show, well before the rest of the series.1 Others, like Yes Minister, are broadcast as part of the first series of the programme, sometimes with a few extra edits before transmission. There are ones which were transmitted purely by mistake, as per Absolutely Fabulous. And sometimes, like Drop the Dead Donkey, they were never transmitted at all, and instead became available on DVD years down the line. And then there’s the truly interesting ones, where the pilot of a show has never been officially shown or released. One…