History PoorlyDisguisedPilot / LiveActionTV

* The ''Series/{{Girlfriends}}'' Season 6 episode titled "The Game" was a PDP for the show of the same name, featuring Joan's cousin Melanie (played by Creator/TiaMowry), who was having trouble choosing between a medical school in San Diego (where her boyfriend plays football) or Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Joan herself only appeared for a few minutes before the episode focused on Melanie and Derwin.

* The final season of ''Series/{{Highlander}}'' is an example of this. It featured a string of episodes centered around various new female Immortals, an attempt to see which one the audience liked best for a [[DistaffCounterpart female-centric spin-off]]. The attempt was unsuccessful, and ultimately, recurring Immortal Liz Gracen was spun off to the short-lived ''Highlander: The Raven'' series. One of those female test runs was called The Raven. That ended up being the name of the new series, even though it didn't star that character and Liz Gracen's character Amanda had never been associated with a black bird of portent before. It took an incredibly clumsy credit sequence that tried to make the case that thief Amanda is like a Native American mythological Trickster God Raven to justify the title. Why not just call it RuleOfCool and be done with it?

* ''Series/TheMandalorian'' has two in the second season: ''Series/TheBookOfBobaFett'' and ''Ahsoka''.
** ''Series/TheBookOfBobaFett'' features an inversion as two episodes skip away from Boba and Fennec all together to [[spoiler: deal with Din's attempts to reunite with Grogu.]]

* The third season finale of ''Series/OneOnOne,'' "Phatheadz," reduced star Flex Alexander to a bookending cameo and left out all the others to focus on his brother (only introduced in ''the previous episode'' "The Prodigal Brother") and the barber shop he ran, and the daughter of the owner of the shop (Creator/ShannonElizabeth) who wanted it to become a hair salon. In the end they teamed up and called it "Pharenity" (Shannon wanted to call the salon "Serenity") - unlike most [[PoorlyDisguisedPilot PDPs]], this one also had a happy ending and eventually became the UPN sitcom ''Cuts''.

* The TV remake of Stephen King's novel ''Carrie'' would have been a better and more faithful adaptation than the big screen version if the producers hadn't decided to try and turn it into a pilot for a TV series by adding an absurd new ending. Suffice it to say, the network wasn't interested and what resulted was a decent movie that got done in by a terrible ending.

* The ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Assignment: Earth" ends with Kirk and Spock assuring everyone that they are sure Roberta Lincoln (played by then-unknown Teri Garr) and her super-spy boss Gary Seven (played by Robert Lansing) will have many more interesting adventures to come. Sadly, they didn't; the most they got was an occasional appearance in the ExpandedUniverse[[note]]Most notably ''Literature/StarTrekTheEugenicsWars'' in which Gary and Roberta are the heroes matching wits with [[BigBad Star Trek's most iconic villain, Khan Noonien Singh]].[[/note]]. The episode was originally written as a straight pilot and then [[DolledUpInstallment reworked to include the Trek characters when a buyer couldn't be found]]. Note how Kirk and Spock are rather awkwardly shoehorned into a storyline to which they contribute very little. As Kirk himself put it in the episode, "I have never felt so helpless."
** One reason the pilot failed to sell is that Robert Lansing (who had previously quit "12 O'Clock High") made it clear he wasn't interested in returning to the weekly TV grind (not at that time, anyway - he was later a regular on ''{{Series/Automan}}'' and ''Series/KungFuTheLegendContinues'').

* ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'': The episode "Behave" has Olivia traveling to different cities in the hopes of having them test the rape kits of a woman who has been repeatedly stalked and raped by the same man. She spends the most time and has the most success in Los Angelus, and the detective she works with is shown to be skilled and likeable. The pilot episode for ''Series/LawAndOrderLA'' aired that same night, right after the ''SVU'' episode. It only lasted one season though.

* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'':
** "[[Recap/SmallvilleS05E04Aqua Aqua]]" was almost entirely devoted to a reinvention of the classic Comicbook/{{Aquaman}} character, with little relation to the regular plot. It was later revealed that Creator/TheWB planned to launch a ''Smallville''-esque ''Aquaman'' series called ''Mercy Reef''. The proposed series would have diverged widely from the episode's version of the character; in the unaired pilot, Aquaman was played by Creator/JustinHartley rather than Creator/AlanRitchson, who played the character in ''Smallville''. After the pilot failed, Hartley was cast as ComicBook/GreenArrow on ''Smallville'' and Ritchson keep guest-starring as Aquaman.
** There was an episode of ''Smallville'', "[[Recap/SmallvilleS06E11Justice Justice]]", that quickly trapped Clark in order to bring in the newly formed ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica (ComicBook/GreenArrow, Comicbook/{{Cyborg}}, Comicbook/{{Aquaman}}, and [[ComicBook/TheFlash Impulse]]). This may have been testing the waters for a ''Justice League'' TV show, or it might just have been a ratings grab. The original actor playing ComicBook/GreenArrow has dismissed ideas of starring in a GA spin-off, feeling that this would be disloyal to the series. [[Series/{{Arrow}} The resulting show]] is not even a spinoff, but has since gone forward starring a different actor with a completely different plot and version of the character.
** "[[Recap/SmallvilleS10E18Booster Booster]]", centered on ComicBook/BoosterGold and ComicBook/BlueBeetle, possibly as a test for a future series, but nothing has come of it since then.

* The ''Series/AdamTwelve'' episode "A Clinic on 18th Street" served as the pilot for a show featuring Fraud Division. The cast of the pilot (including future ''Series/{{Switch|1975}}''[=/=]''Series/CagneyAndLacey'' star Sharon Gless, who gets the WelcomeEpisode treatment), are all listed in the opening credits as "Special Guest Stars". Reed and Malloy only appear in the beginning and end of this story of a doctor peddling electronic health belts to diabetics and fake blindness cures to little girls. Jack Webb directed, but not in his trademark ''Franchise/{{Dragnet}}'' style.

* ''Series/OneTreeHill'':
** "All Tomorrow's Parties" was clearly trying to set up a spin-off, this time with Tony Battle(and his father Chuck), a rival of Nathan's from High Flyers Basketball camp who got a lot of screentime and who was never mentioned before or after. This was even echoed by the writer Anna Lotto, who confirmed on Drama Queens that the Battle story was blatantly shoehorned in by the producers in an attempt to set up a spin-off.

* ''Series/OneTreeHill'': "I'm Wide Awake It's Morning" was heavily speculated by many people to be this(including Joy, Hilarie and Sophia themselves on the Drama Queens podcast) as it introduced Nathan's never before mentioned or hinted at Uncle Cooper who drives for NASCAR introduced a brand-new location in the speedway and brand new characters with his kids and employees. While it does differ from other PDP's in that one member of the main cast Nathan is focused on and Cooper does come back later on the show after this episode, it also focuses a surprising amount of screentime on Cooper's family and employees with most of the main cast relegated to the background in subplots(with one character Haley not even appearing at all except as a ghost in the beginning).
** "All Tomorrow's Parties" was another episode that was clearly trying to set up a spin-off, this time with Tony Battle(and his father Chuck), a rival of Nathan's from High Flyers Basketball camp who got a lot of screentime and who was never mentioned before or after. This was even echoed by the writer Anna Lotto, who confirmed on Drama Queens that the Battle story was blatantly shoehorned in by the producers in an attempt to set up a spin-off.

* ''Series/TheNanny'' had a second-season episode called "The Chatterbox", where Miss Fine took Maggie to get her hair done at a salon called owned by a CampStraight single father hairdresser, and a workplace full of wacky characters who received more airtime than the regulars. The series wasn't picked up by Creator/{{CBS}}.

* ''Series/TheNanny'' had a second-season episode called "The Chatterbox", where Miss Fine took Maggie to get her hair done at a salon called "The Chatterbox", the workers at which had a surprising amount of screen time. The series wasn't picked up by Creator/{{CBS}}.

* ''Series/TheMandalorian'' has two in the second season: ''Series/TheBookofBobaFett'' and ''Ahsoka''.

* The ''Series/{{Girlfriends}}'' Season 6 episode titled "The Game" was a PDP for the show of the same name, featuring Joan's cousin Melanie (played by Creator/TiaMowry, who was having trouble choosing between a medical school in San Diego (where her boyfriend plays football) or Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

* The ''Series/Girlfriends'' Season 6 episode titled "The Game" was a PDP for the show of the same name, featuring Joan's cousin Melanie (played by Creator/TiaMowry, who was having trouble choosing between a medical school in San Diego (where her boyfriend plays football) or Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

* ''Series/{{CSI}}'' did this to launch ''Series/CSIMiami'', which in turn launched ''Series/{{CSI NY}}''.

** Similarly with the ''Series/{{CSI NY}}'' episode "The Thing About Heroes", which introduced at least one major character from the Chicago police department.
** Rumours circulated for a while about a possible CSI London (although for accuracy, it should be SOCO London, as the real-life CSI equivalents of the British Police are called Scene Of (the) Crime Officers[[note]] The NYPD relies on ''CSU--Crime Scene Unit''[[/note]]) such that, when Mac Taylor of ''Series/{{CSI NY}}'' visited London, there was an expectant hush among some viewers... which dissipated almost immediately, since London was just a stock-footage pretty backdrop for a mystery phone call, part of a very definitely American story arc.

* The third season finale of ''Series/OneOnOne,'' "Phatheadz," reduced star Flex Alexander to a bookending cameo and left out all the others to focus on a never-before-heard-of relative and the barber shop he ran, and the daughter of the owner of the shop (Creator/ShannonElizabeth) who wanted it to become a hair salon. In the end they teamed up and called it "Pharenity" (Shannon wanted to call the salon "Serenity") - unlike most [[PoorlyDisguisedPilot PDPs]], this one also had a happy ending and eventually became the UPN sitcom ''Cuts''.

* The ''Series/{{Quincy}}'' episode "Suffer the Little Children", with Tony Dow as an on-site therapist who lives with troubled families. The very last episode of ''Quincy'', "The Cutting Edge," was another one of these (in which ''none''the regulars besides the Q-man.

* ''Series/AllAmerican'' had one for its spin-off series, ''Series/AllAmericanHomecoming'', which focuses on recurring character Simone Hicks moving to Atlanta to attend Bringston University.

* ''Series/AllAmerican'' had one for its spin-off series, ''All American: Homecoming'', which focuses on recurring character Simone Hicks moving to New Jersey to attend Princeton University.

* The ''Series/{{Doom Patrol|2109}} episode "Dead Patrol" introduces the Dead Boys Detective Agency, gives a rundown of their individual backstories, and ends with Dorothy leaving Doom Manor to join them. This was intended to set up a spin-off series, although it's since been announced that the new series may not be set in the same continuity.

* ''Series/BlackLightning2018'': The seventh episode of Season 4 serves as this for a spin-off focused on Khalil/Painkiller, who reappears after having been PutOnABus at the end of Season 3. The only main ''Black Lightning'' cast members to show up are Anissa and Grace, and even then they're barely in it, the show instead focusing on Khalil's new team and laying the groundwork for the conflict they're going to face should the show get picked up.