"This reference work, the most complete guide to aired and unaired television pilot films ever published (or made available in any way), contains 5,190 alphabetically arranged programs, each with storyline information, performer and character cast listings, producers, air dates (where applicable), genre, and network or cable association."--

This reference work, the most complete guide to aired and unaired television pilot films ever published (or made available in any way), contains 5,190 alphabetically arranged programs, each with storyline information, performer and character cast listings, producers, air dates (where applicable), genre, and network or cable association. Also included are the unaired versions of pilots that became a series (like 90 Bristol Court, Hazel, The Middle and Perfect Strangers) and the updates of aired series that were never telecast (e.g., The Robinsons: Lost in Space, the 1997 version of Hawaii Five-0, the 2011 Wonder Woman and the 2001 Electra Woman and Dyna Girl).

On November 27, 1937, NBC presented TV's first pilot film, Sherlock Holmes (then called an "experiment"). Thousands of pilot films (both unaired and televised) have been produced since. This updated and restyled book contains 2,470 alphabetically arranged pilot films broadcast from 1937 to 2019. Entries contain the concept, cast and character information, credits (producer, writer, director), dates, genre and network or cable affiliation. In addition to a complete performer's index, two appendices have been included: one detailing the pilot films that led to a series and a second that lists the programs that were spun off from one series into another. Never telecast pilot films can be found in the companion volume, The Encyclopedia of Unaired Television Pilots, 1945-2018. Both volumes are the most complete and detailed sources for such information, a great deal of which is based on viewing the actual programs.

Covering the years 1945-2018, this alphabetical listing provides details about 2,923 unaired television series pilots, including those that never went into production, and those that became series but with a different cast, such as The Green Hornet, The Middle and Superman. Rarities include proposed shows starring Bela Lugosi, Doris Day, Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, Orson Welles, Claudette Colbert and Mae West, along with such casting curiosities as Mona Freeman, not Gale Storm, as Margie in My Little Margie, and John Larkin as Perry Mason long before Raymond Burr played the role.

"A television pilot is a sample episode of a proposed weekly series. An unsold pilot is much, much more. It's fresh faces and old favorites lining up for a one-night stand with the viewing public. It's producers, writers, directors, and network executives scrambling to keep up with the changing trends in American taste. It's the betting stub you're left with after your horse has lost the race...The networks are in the entertainment business and lucky for us consumers, even the business-behind-the-business is entertainment. Pilots may be lunacy, but as long as they make them, as long as they sneak into primetime, we can all pretend we can run a network" --