10 Epic TV Shows That Never Made It To Our Screens
3. IT Crowd
Anyone who knows anything about top class British comedy, will know that the IT Crowd was one on its own. A lazy dude (Roy) super coder, (Moss) and their technologically challenged manager (Jen) all combined to create an awkward yet witty cauldron of hilarity.
Much like with The Office, America caught wind of the success of the show and decided they wanted a slice of the action.
NBC were the network wanting to bring the gang over to the U.S., except they didn't want to involve the whole of the original crew. To be more specific, they just wanted Richard Ayoade's version of Moss.
Joel McHale would replace Chris O'Dowd and Jessica St. Clair took over from Katherine Parkinson, with the pilot being filmed in January 2007.
A full series would be ordered and be advertised to appear on NBC some time between 2007-08. Except, by the time we hit September, the show had not even gone into production. Multiple scripts were written, but NBC Chairman, Ben Silverman, spoke of how something 'didn't quite spark' when trying to create the series.
Had NBC followed the same route as the U.S. Office finally did - leaving the British roots of the series behind - the American IT Crowd could of been fantastic. Instead, we got a carbon copy of the original pilot, that didn't really sync up with an American audience.