It’s hard to imagine that many people had invested much hope in the fate of Bryan Fuller’s “Mockingbird Lane” pilot, nearly two months after its one-off airing on NBC. But just in case you still were holding your breath in anticipation…
Sorry.
The “Pushing Daisies” creator tweeted on Thursday (December 27) afternoon that the “Munsters” reboot has transitioned from “presumptively dead” to “formally dead.”
“I tweet with a heavy heart,” Fuller told his Twitter followers. “NBC not moving forward with #MockingbirdLane. From producers and cast, thank you all for enthusiasm and support.”
This completes a rather circuitous journey for a pilot that required heavy expenditure of time and finances.
Written by Fuller, “Mockingbird Lane” was developed for the 2010-2011 development season, was resurrected in November of 2011 and was pushed back to a summer pilot shoot, missing NBC’s upfronts announcement in May 2012. Directed by Bryan Singer, the pilot featured Eddie Izzard as Grandpa Munster, Jerry O’Connell and Portia de Rossi as Lily and Herman and Mason Cook as Eddie Munster.
After some silence, “Mockingbird Lane” got a minor hype boost from Singer’s appearance at Comic-Con, but then the buzz died down until reports broke that NBC wasn’t sending the pilot to series. Fuller denied those reports and NBC subsequently scheduled the pilot for a one-off pre-Halloween airing on Friday, October 26, adding to that unusual step by promoting the project and making the hour available to critics.
“Mockingbird Lane” drew over 5.4 million viewers and a 1.5 rating among adults 18-49. Depending on how you look at it, those numbers were either “not bad at all for a dismal Friday time slot” or “not nearly good enough for what was an expensive pilot.”
NBC has apparently taken the latter view.
Don’t worry about Fuller, though. He has “Hannibal” coming to NBC at some point in the spring, or at least we continue to assume “Hannibal” is coming sometime in the spring, even though NBC has yet to set a premiere date.