The year is 1964. Producer Selig J. Seligman convinces the American Broadcasting Corporation to dump a truckload of money into the pilot episode of Alexander the Great, a historical war series on an epic scale (for TV, at least). ABC watched it, said no, and as this was the 60s and there wasn’t some dumb cable channel to dump it on at 2am, the pilot was placed on a shelf to gather dust, never to be aired.

At least, that was the plan, until the bloke who played Alexander (William Shatner) and the bloke who played, um… someone else (Adam West) became Captain Kirk and Batman. ABC realised they could probably trick Star Trek & Batman fans into watching this thing, and chucked it on air in 1968.

And thus, the concept of “pretending a dead pilot is a TV movie” was born.

…sorry? Oh, the pilot! It’s old and dumb and nobody can punch. Also, it was the 60s, so take a guess how well the one female character was portrayed.

 

Reviewers: James Ferris, Lisa Dib, Andrew Cherry

Soundboard: Alex Malone