Dive, dive

TV Up until about the age of twelve, I wondered why some films I watched on tv didn't end properly. I remember one in particular were a woman who's father left her a fortune in his will, also left a series of videos offering pearls of wisdom which she would go on to use in fighting crime. All kinds of ideas were set up and although one story ended, there were a number of things which were left hanging. It's not until years later I realised I'd been watching a failed pilot from the mid-Eighties. I also found out there are hundreds of them, shows which sometimes have a spark of genius which never goes to fruition because a series isn't ordered. It's not something which happens much over here. In the UK we tend to comission a series and then turn up later to sort out the wreckage.

But what about the actors in US pilots who are on tenderhooks to find out if they're in the new Desperate Housewives. In this, four actors are interviewed about the waiting game:

"With the fate of Reunion in the hands of the network, Faris is playing the waiting game again, but this time with added wisdom. "We won't find out until mid-May," he says. "You just try not to think about it. It's funny, last year we shot Life, and we knew we had this great thing, it was very exciting, but we knew it was a major risk as well. I was just on pins and needles to find out. This time around, I know what's going on. I understand why it would get picked up and why it might not be."

According to this the new Marshall Herscovitz and Ed Zwick hasn't been picked up yet. One of these days, those guys will create a series which will run and run...