History WhatCouldHaveBeen / LiveActionTV

** At one point, Joss wanted Sunnydale to sink into the earth in Season 5.
This happened in Season 7 instead.

* In an early version of the script for the ''QuantumLeap'' episode that introduced Alia, the "Evil Leaper", the major difference from the aired version occurred at the end. Alia has a gun on Sam, and is being ordered to kill him. Sam talks her down, appealing to her better nature, and gets the gun from her. Then, Sam ''points the gun at Alia!'' He tells her that he can't let her go, that the "stakes are too high." Al is very encouraging of this development. Alia, needless to say, feels a tad betrayed. Then she Leaps out. One can only presume that sanity prevailed, because this out-of-character display of hypocrisy never made it to air.

** Kat was supposed to show up in ''Forever Red'' and ''Dino Thunder'', canonizing the possible future that she does end up married with Tommy, but the first time her scene had to be cut (she did voice a villain however) and the second her actress was pregnant. Thus many fans blissfully put their marriage into further discontinuity.

** Kat was supposed to show up in ''Forever Red'' and ''Dino Thunder'', canonizing the possible future that she does end up married with Tommy, but the first time her actress was unavailable and the second they didn't want to pay extra to bring her over to New Zealand. Thus many fans blissfully put their marriage into further discontinuity.

** BruceLee as Kwai Chang Caine in KungFu.

*** BruceLee as Kwai Chang Caine in KungFu.

* ''WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'': Justin was originally meant to be a friend of Alex, and not her brother. Considering they now have [[strike: about 40 entries in a]] their own [[strike: section on the]] BrotherSisterIncest [[BrotherSisterIncest/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace page,]] they probably should have stuck to the original idea.

* ''{{Heroes}}'': Forget Peter Petrelli's telekinesis. What ''really'' saved the world from getting a virus released on it in S2 was the [[TVStrikes Writer's Strike]]. As you might have been expecting, a whole section of the S2 DVD/Bluray release is devoted to WhatCouldHaveBeen without the Strike ("Untold Stories").

** Charlotte was originally meant to be an American and the role was offered to Kristen Bell, but she rejected it for a role on ''{{Heroes}}''. So it was changed when British actress Rebecca Madder was cast. This has lead to a (implausable) theory held by some that she was meant to be revealed as Annie (given her link to DHARMA), but since Annie was American this was quietly dropped later on. Other ''Lost'' castings that never were include Lance Reddick as Eko (had to drop out due to his role on TheWire) and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Libby (which never got past them asking her).

* ''Friends'' had been planned to include Monica and Joey as a (possibly beta) couple, toying with the idea since the pilot (having them saying the two first lines and Joey being critical about her sleeping with Paul), then again at the fifth episode (when they pretended to be a couple) and at the eight (IIRC) by Phoebe commenting on how Monica'd had a crush on him. After the writers tried many different potential-coupling light sub-plots or lines during the first seasons, it was decided that Monica was better off with Chandler (starting season 5) and Joey would be left with UST with Phoebe.

* Not only was {{Glee}} originally going to be a movie, it was a bit more dark with actual drug use and a sexual student-teacher relationship. Alsothere was going to be an Indian character name Ranjit. When ChrisColfer came in to audition, the writers made up a character for him and Ranjit was completely written out. Sure, Chris is great as Kurt, but you can't help wondering what Ranjit would have been like...

<<|WhatCouldHaveBeen|>>)

** At Power Morphicon, TonyOliver unveiled many ideas of what could have been in MightyMorphinPowerRangers. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8tGfxyX-qU From the bad runner-up cast]], to the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEKilL5p9jo three different pilots]] of Day of the Dumpster (one featuring [[TheOtherMarty Audri DuBois as Trini]] and Bulk as a random mook that was later shown as the LostEpisode and the other ''two'' pilots shot with Thuy Trang, including a more violent confrontation with the [[AscendedExtra newly upgraded Bulk]] and new addition Skull with a gang of mooks of their own that got [[ExecutiveMeddling cut by the network]]).=

** The original planned mid-season finale for [[PowerRangersTurbo Turbo]] was called "Rangers in Concert", which would've involved the current Turbo Rangers fighting a cockroach monster named Rockin' Roach, as well as focus much on Carlos (whose surname was orignally "Chavez") and Ashley (who was originally named "Missy"), along with Lt. Stone's niece Jenny Hunter (from "Cars Attacks", and she was originally called "Ashley"), and introduce Tanya's intern at KAGV, Michael (who was basically a prototype of T.J. minus the baseball skills). At the end of the episode, the Blue Senturion would be fixed, and show Tommy, Kat, Adam, and Tanya the full Millenium Message, revealing Michael, Ashley, Carlos, and Missy as the next Power Rangers and the ones who save the world from the united villains [[http://sirstack.livejournal.com/33969.html]]. But unfortunately, Doug Sloan and Ann Austen were both fired by Jonathan Tzachor before the script could be filmed. However, despite the ditching of this script, the second part of "Passing the Torch" does work on the possibility that the retiring Rangers ''did'' see the full Millenium Message.

** [[PowerRangersInSpace Cassie Chan]] Patricia Ja Lee was supposed take over Kendrix's spot as the Pink [[PowerRangersLostGalaxy Galaxy]] Ranger at the end of [[DyingMomentOfAwesome The Power of Pink]], due to Valerie Vernon's fight with leukemia, with the handoff already filmed. Unfortunately, due to the uncertainty of Vernon's cancer fight at the time (she later won hence her [[IGotBetter sudden resurrection]] in the finale), the crew was unable drop Vernon from her spot in the opening in order to pay Lee the same rate and benefits (since PR was SAG union at the time) instead of sticking her in the back end for much less. Lee quit, necessitating a re-shoot of the ending using stuntmen for stand-ins and Melody Perkins ([[PowerRangersInSpace Astronoma/Karone]]) was hired for less causing her character to quickly go from TheAtoner [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute to]] GenkiGirl since the scripts originally written for {{Tomboy}} Cassie.

** The most well-known example: [[spoiler:Teri Bauer]] was originally supposed to survive being shot at the end of Season 1. The film crew shot three different endings: [[spoiler: the broadcast version (where she dies), one where she is shot but pulls through, and one where she is unharmed and walks off smiling with Jack]]. [[spoiler:Teri's]] fate was up in the air until the start of the second season, but this is a case of ExecutiveMeddling that turned out for the best: the incident helped develop Jack Bauer as a character.

** Elle was supposed to be revealed as Claire's sister... and, of course, ''yet another damn Petrelli''. This was luckily dropped. [[spoiler:Though the writers briefly decided to imply that Sylar was a Petrelli for no discernible reason instead. Then it turned out Mama Patrelli lied about that. SoYeah.]]

***Maria Bamford (auditioned for the 2003-2004 season [season 29]; lost to Finesse Mitchell and Kenan Thompson)

* Joanna [=McCoy=], Dr. [=McCoy's=] daughter, who was in the UniverseBible for the original ''Trek'' series. In the third season, an episode was written which introduced her, but it eventually mutated into the infamous hippie episode "The Way To Eden" with Joanna replaced by Irina Galliulin. Joanna was then set to appear in the fourth season, but the show got cancelled first. She finally showed up in ''StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'' and, of course, has made many appearances in the ''StarTrekExpandedUniverse''. But technically she still does not canonically exist.

** And they'd still be a doctor and a captain!

* ''SoWeird'' had its arc all planned out... and then the lead actress left midway through. So the show got LighterAndSofter instead of DarkerAndEdgier, and Fi didn't go to Hell to rescue her father.

* ''24'' was originally a much different show than what it ended up becoming. Prior to the first season, the producers had envisioned the show as a drama about the planning of a ''wedding''. This was changed in pre-production to a government agent trying to stop the assassination of a senator. The "wedding" angle would be revisited in the first few hours of the second season with the Warner family.