[Gary Baldy]

Challenge is the main culprit for this- Les’s last few Family Fortunes, the last couple of Lily Savage Blankety Blanks, half a series of Supermarket Sweep, Cash Cab burnt several episodes off there too… does anyone have any more examples?

I’m curious to know if there’s any non-Challenge examples too (maybe even non-Gameshow examples), but of course if people can think of any more game shows/challenge shows they’re welcome to share them.

[lookoutwales]

If I can add one more Challenge example, there was the 2002 series of Play Your Cards Right as well.

CITV, just before the afternoon strand on ITV1 was axed, had a habit towards the end of running new series for a few episodes (i.e. the Finders Keepers revival or Scratch and Sniff's Den of Doom*) before burning them off ad nauseum on the CITV Channel.

* Burning off what was probably one of the last original CITV productions of that era could well have given rise to the ridiculous myth of it being 'lost media'.

[Neil Jones]

I suspect they went unaired because the commissioning network pulled the plug because the ratings were crap or something more interesting had come along which was an ideal excuse to drop it, as all those examples are ITV shows.

Either that or the network had to pull it. The unaired episodes of Hardwicke House were later "aired" on YouTube, which isn't a broadcast channel as such, but at least they finally came out to play, 30 odd years later.

Likewise, the American sitcom Turn-On, which they made two episodes of and only aired one, was later dumped on YouTube and apparently can also be seen in a museum somewhere in New York.

I really want to say Popetown here, which was commissioned for BBC Three and was never aired over here, though it went out on some arms of MTV Europe, and was pushed out on DVD.

Pretty sure CITV channel burnt off some episodes of the Emu Revival as well, having teased it on the main ITV block.

[James2001]

Quite a lot of US shows that have been cancelled mid season had episodes that weren't seen until they were shown in other countries or aired in syndication (or released on home video), I imagine that counts.

[Neil Jones]

Quite a lot of US shows that have been cancelled mid season had episodes that weren't seen until they were shown in other countries or aired in syndication (or released on home video), I imagine that counts.

Many shows don't get past the pilot. Many others don't even get that far.
Not unique to the US, probably applies globally, I dare say there's more unbroadcast material than there is broadcast.

[IndigoTucker]

BSB soap Jupiter Moon had 150 episodes commissioned, but the closure of Galaxy meant a fair few were never seen in the UK until a mid 1990s run on the UK Sci-fi channel, and the 2000s US DVDs. I think they were shown internationally though.

[nwtv2003]

The second series of The Sketch Show was fully aired on Paramount Comedy, as ITV didn’t air the last couple of episodes.

Similarly, Paramount/Comedy Central also aired an episode of Not Going Out before the BBC did, but this was when it was presumed axed by the BBC, before it came back on air a year or so later.

[madmusician]

This doesn't quite fit the bill, but the final series of the original Robot Wars that the BBC commissioned (Extreme series 2), had several episodes only shown on BBC Choice and never shown on BBC Two. It certainly was infuriating for me and my brother at the time, as we were huge fans but in an analogue-only household. I was only able to see them when they appeared on YouTube some years later!

I suspect that this was because the BBC were being very slow at showing these Robot Wars episodes on BBC Two (having run them to death on Choice), and the new series started on Channel 5, leaving the BBC to decide to never show those final few episodes on BBC Two. I think it was that rather than the BBC deciding to never show them on BBC Two, if that makes sense.

[Neil Jones]

Doesn't Robot Wars run on its own as a tournament of some sort and just happened to be something that became televised for a while? Or am I thinking of something else?
Robot Wars started off as a sort of tournament type thing before the TV show came along, and I know America has (or had) something called Battlebots which was basically Robot Wars in new colours.

[James2001]

Battlebots is still running, ITV4 show it over here. My boyfriend's heavily into the fighting robot scene (he builds them and goes to various tournaments- he's at one next week, in fact) so I have to watch it whenever I'm at his place!