The Show That Never Was

Untransmitted pilots litter the cupboards of TV channels like galaxies in the heavens. Commissioned on the basis of a half-decent script or a pitch or a star name they are televisions research and development. Sometimes a hunch that something will work is enough. Sometimes all the data, research and planning that goes into a show counts for nothing. It may have seemed like a good idea at the time but it turned out to be a pile of shit. And there's a mountain of that in TV.

I'm a firm believer that pilots help a good show and help weed out the potentially bad - but not always.

This is the story of a show that was never piloted, went straight to series and has never, ever been seen except by a handful of execs who had to watch it through their fingers.

It was the mid nineties and Entertainment television was populated by quiz shows and games shows and parlour games. "Reality" TV was a long way off.

I was series producing two Noel Edmonds' shows simultaneously. The other side of the corridor, my boss, John King, was cooking up an idea for a show I didn't get to hear about until it was commissioned. By that time it was already too late.

The genesis wasn't an idea but a chance meeting. He was staying at a hotel when the fire alarm sounded in the middle of the night. He grabbed what he could and made his was down to the assembly point. It was there in the car park, as disgruntled guests waited for the all-clear,  that he bumped into someone else with ruffled hair in a bathrobe, the comedian Jim Davidson. John engaged him in conversation - as he did with everyone - and told him he had the perfect format for Jim's talents. At the time Davidson was fronting a snooker based gameshow that had proved extremely popular on the BBC - remember this is the mid-nineties. Davidson was flattered and John promised to send him an outline. But John was doing what he always did, he'd tried to catch the fish before he's bought a rod.

There was no format.

Quickly he cast around, and came up with something he called 'Jim's Treasure Islands' - a brand new kind of show where couples would compete on a desert island to find a treasure chest. But as with all things John touched he was good at broadstrokes, terrible at fine detail. I don't know who did the format but it certainly wasn't anyone in the BBC Ents department and I doubt anyone who'd ever been near a gameshow. But John had enough, armed with sketches of smiling water ski-ing contestants and a bankable BBC 1 name he took the show to the front office where it was greenlit.

This was when I first heard about it. I had enough on my plate but he showed me some sketches and then told me he'd found an island off Australia that was perfect.

"Australia? "
"Yes"
"What about the contestants?"
"We're taking them with us"
"You're flying ordinary folk from England to Oz to take part in a game show?"
"It'll be great"


This was going to be some production. I wondered why we couldn't find somewhere closer to home but he was insistent. Australia had everything he needed to make his show. Except John didn't really make shows. He clever assembled people who knew what they were doing and he stood back and took an overview - or as we called it interferred with bloody ridiculous suggestions. On this one he was in charge.

That was my last involvement until some months later when they were down under making the show and word came back that all was not well.

On arrival they discovered that their idyll was not quite what they'd expected. As props and games started to be built the local authorities stepped in. What the hell did they think they were doing? A new kind of gameshow they replied. Not here mate, this is a protected bird sanctuary, you don't get to make your tv show here, sport. Piss off!

Now they're in the shit.
All their plans have been blown out of the water before the contestant have even got into the water.
Calls were made, a beach was found. Not exactly a Treasure Island but at least there was sand.

They relocate. A storm hits, flattens the sets and blows the props away. They scrabble to make do with what's left.

And all this time the contestants from England are sitting around wondering what the hell is going on but then again, they'r on an all expenses paid trip to OZ. Whey-hey!

The sun comes out and they start filming. At last. Except Davidson had very pale skin and instantly burnt. They now had a host who looked like a lobster. They covered him with cream, that made thing worse. He was now the ghost of a lobster.  What's more he wasn't a very funny lobster. To keep costs down they had decoded they didn't need a writer. WHAT? Yep, they had enough money to take all those people to the other side of the world to make a gameshow but there wasn't enough money for a writer.

John had chosen a vintage director who'd spent his life making motoring programmes. Why? No idea. This meant he didn't have a feel for entertainment formats. It was a mess. What was shot on the beach looked like a wet Wednesday in Weston Super Mare, what was shot on the water was worse. He decided to put his camera on the deck of a motor cruiser as Davidson explained to the contestants what was expected of them in the following game. But the sea was hevier than they'd expected and the horizon went up and down in the background. Watching the footage made you feel sea-sick.

The games were frankly pathetic. There was no sense of scale or reason why the show should have travelled all those miles. The games on the water were shot too wide to have any impact, the games on the beach resembled a televised Easter Egg hunt.  When I saw the footage I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I felt sorry for the contestant who'd gone all that way and obviously thought they were part of something special and were putting real effort into games that made you want to cringe with embarrassment.

By the time John and his crew got back from Oz the word was already out. This was a turkey of epic proportions. But John didn't see it like that. He didn't like our nagative reaction to the footage.

They went away to cut it. They barely managed to pull together one show. Meetings were called, gloom descended.

He co-opted one of my best directors to recut it but there just wasn't enough usable material to make anything work. It was a disaster. John was now looking for other poeple to blame and moved on, distancing himself from the show.

It cost millions. It has never been seen.

They should have made a pilot. In Weston Super Mare.