10 TV Shows With Massive Budgets That Failed
3. Supertrain
We go all the way back to 1979 for one of the first -- and worst -- flops of all time.
NBC saw the success of ABC's The Love Boat and thought they could make their own, better version of it. So instead of placing the story on a beautiful cruise ship on the open sea, they decided to set it on a train.
Try imagining the logistics of building three entire sets of trains that looked relatively realistic but still were practical enough for the cast and crew to film on them. Now imagine how much that would cost... in 1979 money.
The sets alone cost over $5 million (around $20 million in today's value), but NBC also went all-in on the marketing, betting the farm on the success of the futuristic show. But the final product was a bunch of underwhelming, over-elaborate storylines on cramped and poorly-lit sets.
Fun fact: the concept of the show was sold to the BBC before it was ever aired in The USA. NBC hoped to recoup some of their production cost by selling the international rights, but upon seeing the terrible reception the American version got, BBC decided to never air the show.