Starring: Bob Odenkirk, Fred Armisen, Zach Galifianakis, Brian Posehn, Nick Swardson
What you missed out on: After Bob Odenkirk and David Cross decided to put a bullet in their HBO sketch comedy series, “Mr. Show” (that’s right, it was their decision, not the network’s), the guys attempted to go their separate ways, with Odenkirk setting up shop at Fox with a pilot for a new sketch comedy series. If you think the above names are impressive, consider that several other “Mr. Show” alumni were in tow as well, including Jerry Minor, Jay Johnston, and Jill Talley, with Patton Oswalt also participating in some capacity or other. And, yes, if you’re wondering, Cross made an appearance in the pilot, too. So what happened? Apparently, Fox basically flipped a coin to decide which new sketch comedy series they’d add to their lineup, and “Cedric the Entertainer Presents” won the toss. Oh, what might’ve been…

Starring: Jason Segel, Amy Poehler, Kevin Hart, and Judge Reinhold as himself
What you missed out on: Judd Apatow has never been ashamed to admit that the only reason that this pilot ever came into existence is that Fox refused to let him cast Jason Segel as his lead in the short-lived but highly-regarded “Undeclared,” but you can’t say he didn’t do his best to surround Segel with top-notch talent. Segel, Amy Poehler, and Kevin Hart played roommates, with Segel a struggling actor, Hart a struggling actor/comedian, and Poehler serving as Judge Reinhold’s personal assistant. There’s a more detailed look at the pilot here, but the long and the short of it is that, although Apatow admits that he really didn’t know if there was a decent series to be had in “North Hollywood,” he thinks the pilot’s pretty decent, but its tone didn’t match the sitcoms filling ABC’s lineup at the time, so they took a pass on it.

Starring: H. Jon Benjamin, Sarah Silverman, Todd Barry, Mitch Hedberg
What you missed out on: Created by Loren Bouchard, best known to animation fans as one of the creative forces behind “Home Movies,” “Saddle Rash” seemed to have all the elements necessary for a successful Adult Swim series, so why didn’t it make it beyond the pilot stage? Was it that westerns weren’t exactly in vogue at the time? Was there some sort of stigma attached to the project because they brought in country artists to continued voice work (including Waylon Jennings as a very special guest in the pilot)? Whatever the case, the pilot got aired – no doubt mostly because Adult Swim has a tendency to air just about every pilot it orders, whether it actually ends up going to series or not – but that was the end of the trail for the series.

Starring: Nathan Fillion, Leighton Meester, Moon Bloodgood, Geoff Stults, Rockmond Dunbar
What you missed out on: Director James Foley has got kind of a weird track record, having helmed “Glengarry Glen Ross,” “Who’s That Girl,” “At Close Ranger,” and “The Corruptor,” but there’s enough good stuff in there to make you take note when he directs the pilot of a series. Yes, it was probably at heart just another cop drama, but there’s no denying that there was going to be plenty of talent in the squad room. There was, at least, a happy ending: series co-creator Barry Schindel went on to serve as a writer and executive producer on “Castle” a few years later. Guess he and Nathan Fillion got along.

Starring: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Alyson Hannigan, Sara Gilbert, Ed O’Neil, Christine Baranski
What you missed out on: The premise of the series involved Hewitt playing a single-mom sports producer who ends up as highly successful on-air talent, but despite taking two stabs at a pilot, the show never gelled properly. On the other hand, while she was filming one of those pilots, the producers of “Ghost Whisperer” came by and pitched Hewitt their show, thereby providing her with an instant fallback position which she was more than glad to take when “In the Game” fell apart.

Starring: Peter Dinklage, Dave Foley, Busy Phillips, Tina Majorino
What you missed out on: Although I loved him on “Threshold,” I certainly couldn’t begrudge Peter Dinklage for moving onward when that show was canceled and taking a shot at headlining his own series. Given that it took place in a high school, the possibilities for “Testing Bob” would seem to have been endless, but it never got off the ground.

Starring: Paul Giamatti, David Hyde Pierce, Patton Oswalt, Molly Shannon
What you missed out on: Unlike the rest of these pilots, the one for this animated series actually received a DVD release, thereby showing the world at large just how completely bizarre it was. It’s not like anyone can possibly be surprised that even Sci-Fi thought the show was too kooky for mainstream audiences to ever embrace it, but at least we can take comfort in the fact that it’s built a small but loyal cult following over the years.

Starring: Heather Locklear, Illeana Douglas, Peri Gilpin, Brittany Robertson
What you missed out on: Several years before Scott Bakula, Ray Romano, and Andre Braugher offered up their TNT series, the opposing gender had already made an attempt at getting on the air under a suspiciously familiar title. It would’ve been nice to see Gilpin somewhere other than ABC Family’s “Make It or Break It,” but it was not to be.

Starring: Paul Reubens, Jane Lynch, Bruce McGill, Matthew Lillard
What you missed out on: You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to guess the premise of this sitcom: it was intended to show all the shenanigans that go on inside the top-secret government base reputed to be the home of alien lifeforms. Did we say “reputed”? Given that Paul Reubens was credited on IMDb as “The Alien,” maybe it’s not so reputed after all.

Starring: Joseph Fiennes, Blythe Danner, Robert Wagner, Carrie-Anne Moss, Jonathan Groff
What you missed out on: Nowadays, you’d be hard pressed to find a network that would take a pass on anything with Ryan Murphy’s name attached to it, but in his pre-”Glee” days, Murphy was mostly still viewed as “that weird ‘Nip/Tuck’ guy,” and this series – about a married man with two sons who has to tell his family that he’s a transsexual – probably didn’t do much for that particular reputation. Probably the only surprising thing about the non-pickup for “Pretty/Handsome” is that the network that turned it down was the same one that put “Nip/Tuck” on the air in the first place. Presumably there were no hard feelings between Murphy and FX, though, given that it remains the home of his “American Horror Story.”

Starring: Catherine O’Hara, Mae Whitman, DJ Qualls, Gary Cole, Jeffrey Tambor, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Treat Williams, Marilu Henner
What you missed out on: Based on the New Zealand series “Outrageous Fortune,” “Good Behavior” would have followed the life of a family of criminals who decide to live life on the straight and narrow after their father ends up behind bars. If the premise sounds familiar, it’s because it ended up being revisited a few years later as “Scoundrels,” which only lasted eight episodes. You’d like to think that “Good Behavior” would’ve lasted longer.

Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nate Corrdry, Molly Parker, Adam Scott
What you missed out on: Although HBO is known for putting some seriously great series on the air, they’re pretty picky about what makes the final cut. For instance, this show about three siblings – played by Gellar, Corrdry, and Parker – adapting to life after the death of their parents, never saw the light of day. On the other hand, though, if it had, then Scott (who played Gellar’s ex-boyfriend) wouldn’t have been available for “Party Down,” so it all worked out in the end.

Starring: David Tennant, Jerry O’Connell, Abigail Spencer, Jane Curtin, Jeffrey Tambor
What you missed out on: In the waning days of his stint on “Doctor Who,” David Tennant decided to expand his horizons and make a break for American television, headlining an NBC series about an attorney who, due to his recurring panic attacks, starts coaching his clients to defend themselves in court…or something like that, anyway. Tennant put on his best American accent – you’ve got to have one if Jane Curtin’s going to play your mother, haven’t you? – and teamed up with a solid supporting cast, but although NBC kept it in play for a decent while, the series never made the schedule.

Well, not really, anyway. I mean, normally, I’ve got an interview or a preview of a new series or a commentary on an existing TV series, and it’s enough to fill up an entire column, but not this time. Between all the writing, transcribing, and family matters going on over the past few weeks, I’ve had precious little time to watch TV these past few weeks, and what I have watched has tended to be in short spurts, which means that I’m way behind on just about all of my favorite shows. Mind you, that’s not to say that I don’t have anything to say. I’m just going to kind of run through some of the things I’ve been watching lately – some new, some old – and offer up my thoughts about them.

First up: the same show just about everyone else was talking about this morning:

Seems like only yesterday that I walked up to Jimmy Fallon at the TCA Press Tour and asked him outright if he was scared shitless about starting his talk show. (His response: “Why, yes. Yes, I am.”) Now look at the guy: slow-jamming the news with the President of the United States. You know, I’d say “I don’t care what your politics are, that’s just awesome,” but I know Republicans better than that. I will, however, note that President Obama earned a little extra respect from me for taking the time to give a shout-out to Key & Peele. It wouldn’t surprise me if you forgot that I talked to them back in January, since the piece didn’t get so much as a single comment, but they’re a hilarious couple of guys, and they deserve all the success they’ve been getting with their Comedy Central Series. But I digress. Here’s that slow jam I mentioned, just in case you haven’t caught it yet:

If you’re a parent, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the addition of children to your life inevitably results in a number of changes to your lifestyle, but one of the most crucial is how it affects your TV viewing habits. It seems like it’d be easy to tell a little kid what they’re going to watch, but you’d be surprised. Battles are often fought in our living room over what I want to watch versus what my daughter calls “my shows,” a short list which includes a variety of programming that I have no interested in sitting through. As such, my wife and I regularly try to find shows that are at least somewhat of a middle ground for us all, thereby avoiding these arguments with a little lass who’s 1/4 my size, and in an effort to avoid watching “Dance Moms” at all cost, I finally asked a question I never thought would come out of my mouth: “Do you want to try ‘Dancing with the Stars’?”

Mind you, it still wouldn’t have come out of my mouth if we didn’t have Hulu Plus, because its regular timeslot(s) finds it up against several programs that I’d much rather watch instead, but since we can stream it whenever we want, we’ve taken advantage of that opportunity…and damned if it hasn’t been amazingly entertaining. I mean, I’m annoyed by the same things on “Dancing with the Stars” that I am on most reality shows, most notably the fact that it’s stretched out to an unnecessary length (particularly the results show, which could be done in 30 minutes without any problem), but it’s been hard to take my eyes off the screen during the actual dance routines. I’m led to understand that this is arguably the strongest group of celebrity contestants they’ve had on the show in quite some time, possibly ever, so I guess I picked the right season to take a chance. By the way, if Katherine Jenkins doesn’t take it all, I’ll be very, very surprised. What a cutie…

Speaking of “Dancing with the Stars,” not only is Jaleel White pulling some serious street-cred from his fancy footwork on this season of the show, but he’s also got a new full-time gig to keep him occupied: hosting SyFy’s new game show, “Total Blackout.” As with about half of the programming on SyFy, it has absolutely nothing to do with SyFy (indeed, it would really fit in better on Chiller), but it’s still a highly entertaining concept, not to mention a simple one: put people in a dark room and have them compete against each other to perform various tasks that would be simple if only they could see. The first few episodes have the contestants reaching into aquarium tasks and being forced to identify objects that range from cockroaches to a pineapple just by touching them, figuring out what they’re eating or smelling, and other strange stuff. You’ll cringe on occasion, but mostly you’ll laugh and say, “I’m glad that’s not me!”

Say what? Yep, Shout Factory has finally secured the rights to continue releasing the full-season sets of this ’70s classic, and when Season 2 arrived at my house, I dug right in. Screw all that new programming: I’d much rather delve through this treasure trove of stars on their way up and down the ladder of success and more character actors than you can shake a stick at. Don’t believe me? Take a look…

Fantasy? Magic? Get it…? Okay, so it’s a slightly imperfect segue. So sue me.

When I first saw the trailer for Starz’s “Magic City,” I was instantly captivated by the look of the series. Having not actually been in Miami Beach in 1961, I haven’t a clue how accurate the portrayal of the area and the era are, but the results sure are easy to watch. Three episodes into the proceedings, however, it’s hard to really know yet what to expect from the series, especially since the second episode fell into the unfortunate but often-repeated mistake of rehashing too much from the pilot. I will say, however, that the third episode was very strong and left me particularly excited about seeing where things will be going this week, so I’m certainly hopeful.

Danny Huston’s an effective bad-ass, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s better here than I’ve seen him in just about anything else, but I do wish they’d give Alex Rocco a storyline that doesn’t feel so damned schmaltzy. He’s made an impression every time he’s been on screen, but I’m invariably left thinking that, although Rocco was great, the storyline wasn’t. But, hey, we’re only three episodes in. There’s still plenty of time left to turn things around.

Time for another flashback, this one courtesy of Warner Home Video, who finally realized that there’s enough of an audience for this short-lived series adaptation of a ’70s classic to warrant releasing it on DVD. (It had previously only been available via download.) Although I have to admit that my first reaction upon watching Gregory Harrison’s performance as Logan was to think, “Gee, I really wish they’d release ‘Trapper John, M.D.’ on DVD,” it turns out that although “Logan’s Run” looks precisely as dated as you’d expect a sci-fi series of the ’70s to look, the stories themselves hold up surprisingly well. Mind you, it doesn’t exactly hurt that Heather Menzies is totally swoon-worthy. Also worth noting is Donald Moffat’s performance as the android Rem, which never fails to be thoughtful, amusing, and just generally entertaining.

Look, I don’t know what the chances are that Fox is going to bring back this “Bones” spin-off for a second season, but let me just go on record as saying that it’s a lot of fun and absolutely worthy of renewal. I have this feeling that a lot of “Bones” fans took a pass of trying it out because the back-door pilot for “The Finder” – that would be the episode of “Bones” that they used to introduce the characters – but I’m here to tell you that the actual series is so much better. With each passing episode, Geoff Stults seems perpetually more at home in the role of Walter, the eccentric gentleman who’s obsessed with finding stuff, and the chemistry between Stults and Michael Clarke Duncan is fantastic. As I say, I have no clue if they’ll deign to bring it back for Season 2, but I sure hope they do.