Lookwell

Lookwell (1991)

The former star of a cancelled cop TV show solves crimes. The pilot was broadcast on NBC in July 1991 but was not picked up as a series despite being a "personal favorite" of NBC chairman Brandon Tartikoff.

Date of release
1991-07-28
TMDB
8.0 / 10 (1)
Runtime
25m
Genres
Comedy, Crime, TV Movie
Director
E.W. Swackhamer

Casting

Interesting facts

Lookwell is a television pilot written and produced by Conan O'Brien and Robert Smigel, the latter of whom would become a primary creative voice for O'Brien's late night show. It starred Adam West. Despite being a "personal favorite" of NBC chairman Brandon Tartikoff, the pilot was not picked up as a series. It was broadcast on NBC on July 28, 1991, in a summer weekend timeslot reserved for burning off pilots which the network had passed on.

Production

The pilot was filmed as a single-camera comedy, which was uncommon for the time it was being developed. Writer Robert Smigel later expressed doubt that the project could sustain itself as a full-fledged television series, questioning if "viewers would really want to view that every week? I'm not so sure they would have."

Smigel recollects main star Adam West being enthusiastic for the role, despite poking fun at his acting style: I remember one day he ran into our office, and he was wearing shorts and a straw hat—but not as a gag. [...] And he announced, "I've got it!" He was dancing on air. He told us that he had been walking on the beach and he'd thought about everything and he finally understood the part. He had cracked the code, kind of like Batman would.

The pilot was scrapped, despite NBC chairman Brandon Tartikoff taking interest in developing the pilot. O'Brien jokingly stated that when the pilot aired, it "was the second-lowest rated television show of all time. It’s tied with a test pattern they show in Nova Scotia." Nielsen rated it 92nd out of 92 shows (2.3 million homes) for the week July 22–28.

Smigel expressed his opinion on pitching for television in an interview with The A.V. Club, in that a "pitfall that you always face when you do any project for television, or in movies ... [is that] if it takes any amount of time to develop, there's a good chance that the person who put it in motion is going to get fired, or quit, and the next person isn't going to want to do it." West expressed disappointment with the network's decision, and wou…

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