Here's a cold, hard and in absolutely no way exaggerated science fact for you every year, more television pilots are pitched, filmed and cast into the pit of obscure, unseen oblivion than there are stars in the known universe, potential moves in chess and terrible decisions on Nicolas Cage's IMDB. Television is an uncaring and uncompromisingly cruel mistress, an industry seemingly run by fickle lunatics leaving the fates of billions (ish) of prospective shows that appear each year to the mercy of luck, chance and circumstance, and all three of them are drunk at the wheel. A pilot can make or break shows chances of emerging from the development chute and actually getting onto screens, but there's a seemingly endless parade of obstacles looking to prevent that. Good ideas that given the right combination of talent, time and MONEY could have blossomed into something really special wind up dissolving into nothing due to poor audience reactions, studio execs flip-flopping, monetary issues or just concepts that were so far out there nobody really got it at the time. As such, the following (in no particular order at all) are a selection of amazing sounding TV almost- shows that were prematurely aborted before they ever really got a chance.