If HBO ultimately doesn't pick up The Long Night* to series, then that's correct that we might never see the pilot.Will we even see the pilot episode? Isn't it usually the norm that a pilot gets made, decision makers get to see it, then they green light or not. Then the pilot ends up as the first episode in the series run. If HBO balks after the pilot is made, we may never see it .... right?
In fact, HBO's programming president recently addressed a similar line of thought in a Deadline interview after the finale aired.
Casey Bloys said:We have [Jane Goldman's] pilot starting in June and then we will decide whether to want to do another one or not. I’m letting those things happen before we decide whether to do another one or not.
If they aren't happy with this pilot, it sounds as though they might move to one of the other two that have been in script development and go forward with filming a different option to see how that one shakes out before deciding which one makes it to series - if any.