TV is a tough business: you can ace your audition, head into the pilot shoot with the whole network's support behind you, follow your director's notes to the letter, and still get fired from what may eventually be a bona fide television classic. (Just ask Lisa Kudrow, who was replaced by Peri Gilpin on Frasier after the third day of rehearsals. Luckily, she landed Friends the next year.) With that in mind, we thought it fair to pay tribute to the actors who were oh-so-close this pilot season before the network decided to go in a different direction. Godspeed, kids. Here's hoping you book a guest star arc in time for November sweeps.
Patton Oswalt
Oswalt's had a rocky time of it lately: he was only available for pilot season because his Broadway debut in Lips Together, Teeth Apart, was scuttled when costar Megan Mullally quit, supposedly citing Oswalt's inexperience. Then, after being cast in the NBC pilot Beach Lane opposite Matthew Broderick, he was swiftly dismissed after the first table read and replaced with comic Nick Thune. If it's any consolation to Oswalt, at least Beach didn't get a pickup.
Fran Kranz
The Dollhouse alum saw NBC pick up his new comedy, Friends with Benefits, but he was replaced. "I was fired," Kranz tweeted. "Too big. I kept saying I was huge but people told me it was great. Guess not." Ironically, in the Jake Kasdan-directed indie The TV Set, Kranz played an actor who sailed through pilot season with 100% support from the network.
Ian Reed Kesler
Kesler was also let go from Friends with Benefits, but he doesn't have a Twitter, so...
Ben Chaplin
Chaplin is a handsome British actor who never quite hit it big in movies (what does it say that the one thing I still remember him from is the Janeane Garofalo-Uma Thurman romcom The Truth About Cats and Dogs?), and he may be doomed to the same fate in TV. The actor was cast opposite Kathy Bates in the David E. Kelley pilot Harry's Law, but while network brass loved Bates, they quickly nixed her scene partner.
Joely Richardson
The Nip/Tuck actress shot the pilot for legal drama The Whole Truth in Los Angeles after negotiating that the series would move to her homebase of New York if it were to be picked up. That deal was made a moot point when Richardson decided to leave and spend more time with her family, who had suffered the loss of her sister, Natasha Richardson, her uncle, Corin Redgrave, and her aunt, Lynn Redgrave, in a span of less than two years.
Ryan Devlin
In the hot CBS pilot Sh*t My Dad Says, everything hinges on the chemistry between irascible dad William Shatner and his son, played in the pilot by Ryan Devlin. CBS loved the show but is already on the hunt for a bigger name to replace Devlin.
Bob Odenkirk
Bob Odenkirk may be a comedy idol to many after Mr. Show, and his wife Naomi reps some of the biggest comedians in town, but that still couldn't secure his place as the adversary to Rob Riggle's high school basketball coach in the CBS pilot Team Spitz. Instead, he was replaced by Kurtwood Smith (That 70's Show).
Kristin Kreuk
Josh Schwartz tapped the Smallville actress and Chuck guest star to topline his half-hour comedy Hitched, but after filming, she was replaced by relative unknown Sara Fletcher. Also in the cast? The double-booked Kurtwood Smith.
Olesya Rulin
Rulin (best known for High School Musical) had one of the more typical pilot season recastings: after taping Fox's Raising Hope, the network just decided to go a different way, hiring Shann
on Woodward to replace her. As for her costar, Kate Micucci...
Kate Micucci
...that's a whole other story, as Micucci was reading for a slacker brother role that was supposed to be male anyway. Still, she nabbed the part, the script was rewritten to make the role female, she shot the pilot, and then...producers decided to switch it back. Even after committing to a sex change, Hollywood can have second thoughts.