There is literally no point at which a show can't be cancelled, some don't get picked up after the pilot is shot, I think there was actually one show that was so bad that they stopped part way through the first episode's airing and never went back, some shows get cancelled after one or two episodes, and then you have shows like The Simpsons, that have run for 30+ years.
Well, it depends. Broadcast networks can pull a show off the air at any time, but syndicated shows are sold by the season, so the stations that carry them are obligated to air the entire season. At worst, if a show tanks in the ratings, they may move it to a late-night or weekend-afternoon time slot where it's out of the way, but they still have to show the episodes. At least, that's how it was in the heyday of first-run syndication.
I think you misunderstood me, I was not talking about the quality of the pilot, I was talking about how people are reacting to it being cancelled. When I made that post I hadn't hear anything about why it was cancelled. So I was thinking at the time that everybody was upset, but it sounded like nobody was considering the fact that maybe it didn't get picked up because it sucked, and Hulu made the right decision in not picking it up.
I don't need you to explain that it was a hypothetical; that was obvious all along. I wasn't talking about this specific pilot either, but making a generalized point about all pilots: that "sucking" is far from the only reason it can be right to reject a pilot. Many relatively good pilots just aren't good
enough, or have flaws that keep them from quite working, like my example of "The Cage."
TV is a competitive business, because a lot of shows are trying to get into a finite number of slots. As with any other competition, it's not simply a matter of being good vs. being terrible, because even most of the good competitors are still going to lose to the
best competitors. Heck, even getting your pilot filmed in the first place is tantamount to becoming a finalist, because you outcompeted all the other series pitches that never even got a pilot commissioned.
Just because someone came into a project not knowing a lot about doesn't automatically mean it's going to be bad, just look at The Wrath of Kahn.
Yes, because creators do
research. If we don't know about our subject going in, we
learn about it. It's no different from any other job training -- you learn the job before you do it. Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer weren't that familiar with Trek when they were hired, but they watched the entire series to get up to speed. Similarly, when I was hired to write a Spider-Man novel despite mostly only knowing the character from TV/film adaptations and recent comics, I read every Spidey comic I could find and read online articles
about most of the ones I couldn't find, and my novel was praised for its detailed grasp of continuity. Also, when we don't know much about a subject, we can consult with experts who know more than we do, like how Keith DeCandido was my martial arts consultant for my
Tangent Knights audionovels.
And the epsiode is sometimes even titled "Pilot"
More often than not, I'd say. And it's always annoyed me, since I feel every story should have a distinct title.
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