[nki]

I remember watching Wayne's World. There was a scene there where Wayne stops at an old gas station to ask the mechanic for directions. Wayne(Mike Myers) stops for a moment then complains to the camera how bad of an actor the man was. So the guy leaves, then out of nowhere, another mechanic comes out to dramatically give him better directions...

The Evolution of Bella's Dad. I think all parents where just basically described. They were just blueprints. The cheating wife/loving mom, the self-absorbed actress, the politician, the domestic mom, the abusive father, etc...We never really got a chance to know them.

I didn't like the first classroom scene with Finn. It was just dead. Good thing they changed that to the lake scene. If not, they probably wouldn't even be given 8 episodes...

after DC, you'd think WB would be smart enough to do better...But no. take one show with a lot of potential, mix with WB...results to bad judgement and a lot of unhappy fans. So it needed improvement, but YA deserved a chance, deserved more than just 8 episodes.

And come on, they deserve a DVD! ( I always end up hating WB even more & pleading for the dvd whenever the episodes are discussed... --because *they deserve it and we are more than worthy of getting our wish...Hey, another Christmas! so maybe, hopefully...)

[Brekkon]

Haha. Bella's mum isn't exactly gorgeous either.

I've only seen "Waynes World" once (at the pictures) so I don't remember that servo scene...but how you've described it, it does fit with "YA". Thankfully they changed the actors!!!

We deserve the DVD because after 5 years, only getting 8 episodes we're still discussing the show!!!

[Jahammer33]

Originally Posted by Silversun God, Bella's biological father was so ugly. This has nothing to do with the unaired pilot or really anything at all, but I just have to throw it out there. How did he beget such a good-looking daughter?

One may indeed wonder how he could possibly be her father!

[Brekkon]

And now we'll never know.

Any other discussions on the unaired pilot?

[Silversun]

Finn and Kate Fleming were kinda gross when they groped each other in the classroom.

[Brekkon]

I wonder whether that was a common occurance?

I'm glad they didn't keep that scene in the pilot. It showed that Kate Fleming has no disregard for her own son, who was to have a class in that very room, seconds away. Not a very good mother/wife.

I haven't seen the unaired pilot in years!

[Jahammer33]

Originally Posted by Silversun Finn and Kate Fleming were kinda gross when they groped each other in the classroom.

I've always thought so too.

[Brekkon]

At least there was no tongue, to my recollection.

[Finnegan]

Two fairly lengthy clips from the unaired pilot, containing all the scenes with Finn, are on YouTube (search YouTube for "Young Americans" and "unaired pilot") and the script is online at at least two locations, including this page of the "Strawberry Lane" website. The aired pilot seems vastly better in many ways: soundtrack, scenery, casting, and scriptwriting. The whole tone of the pilot episode changed from realistic and gross to idealized and edifying; interestingly, most of the cuts from other episodes had the same effect.

Of the things that did not change, one caught my attention: Finn's assertion that passion comes from the groin rather than the head or the heart. I wonder why that wasn't deleted along with the gross Kate-Finn makeout scene and Bella's gross line to Scout while he's stranded in town in his underwear (BELLA: I like the Huggies, but didn't your mother ever tell you it was rude to point?).

After all, the gist of the Jake-Hamilton storyline seems to be that passion need not always originate in the groin, but may come initially from the head or the heart, responding chiefly to personality rather than to physical characteristics. Finn is plainly an alter-ego for Antin in the aired episodes, voicing the themes and literary references for the series. So why keep this line that undercuts Finn's credibility? To show that teachers can learn from students sometimes? Or to underscore how novel and convention-challenging the Jake-Hamilton storyline is?

[wolkenfuehlen]

Oh wow, I had totally forgotten about that Bella line.

I think it really might be the case that Antin kept that statement from Finn to contrast the J/H storyline. To sort of start the viewer off with that idea in mind that passion originates from the groin, and then through the episodes and the J/H storyline show them that that is actually not the case, that sometimes physical attraction as well as gender or sexuality don't matter that much. That is, after all, the appeal of the J/H storyline

[Finnegan]

Originally Posted by wolkenfuehlen (View Post) That sometimes physical attraction as well as gender or sexuality don't matter that much ... is, after all, the appeal of the J/H storyline.

I'm glad to learn I'm not the only one who sees it that way, Anja.

This verges on something that, oddly, seems hardly to have been discussed on this forum, namely that Antin seems to have been deliberately pursuing a gender-bending agenda in Young Americans. Yet he did so in a way that affirmed rather than subverted traditional cultural norms, by emphasizing the moral uses of sexuality generally and by representing gender as just another of the physical characteristics of which "true love," according to an ideal of hoary antiquity, is independent. That the case for straight compassion for gays not only can be dramatized, but is perhaps most effectively dramatized, without a single gay character and moreover without depicting any serious violations of traditional morality at all, seems, to say the least, a remarkable artistic insight. That doesn't resolve the tension between the benefits of individual sexual freedom and the cultural implications of the biological requirements of peopling the world, but it does suggest a way in which the problem might usefully be approached with greater mutual compassion than is commonly evident on either side of America's "culture wars."

Many of the scenes cut not only from the unaired pilot but also from subsequent episodes would fatally have undermined this rhetorical strategy by lowering the moral tone of the show. Apparently Antin didn't commit to an "edifying" rhetorical strategy until rather late in the process of producing the show. One wonders how he came to appreciate its potential.

[Finnegan]

I have downloaded and watched the whole unaired pilot episode of "Young Americans." I hope soon to post it on the "Ickygrub" channel at YouTube, cut into segments of less than 15 minute length as YouTube requires. However, because the songs in the soundtrack of the unaired pilot are by musicians/groups more famous than the musicians/groups whose songs are in the soundtrack of episode 1 of YA as aired, I fear I may run afoul of copyright infringement problems.

The recording of the unaired pilot that I have downloaded is not in HD or anything close to it; the visual quality is not great, but neither is is very bad, and the audio is well-synchronized with the visual.

This recording of the unaired pilot episode of YA was upload onto MegaUpload on July 31, 2010, and given that MegaUpload stores inactive uploads of free accounts for only 30 days, it could become unavailable after August 30, 2010. So if you want to download it, don't delay.

I hope that we may discuss the unaired pilot substantively later, perhaps even do a "watch" (not a rewatch for most of us!) together, soon, when we all have access to it. Meanwhile, I can confirm that the script of the unaired pilot posted on the "Straweberry Lane" YA fansite is 100% accurate to the letter -- unlike the scripts of the aired episodes available on that site and elsewhere online.

[wolkenfuehlen]

I didn't know you hadn't seen it yet! Yes, I agree, we should definitely do a (re)watch of it here on the board some time.

[Finnegan]

The unaired pilot episode of "Young Americans" can now be viewed on the "IckyGrub" channel of YouTube, in the "Young Americans unaired pilot" playlist. Per YouTube's current length limits, it is cut up into three clips of less than 15 minute length each. Critical commentary is offered in the "description" box for each clip.

To the best of my knowledge, the unaired pilot of YA has not recently been, and is not now, viewable online elsewhere.

If you would like to download the whole unaired pilot in a single clip, Google search for "Young Americans" "unaired pilot" & "megaupload." The first two results will give you two separate Megaupload addresses at which the same video is stored. The clips of the unaired pilot on the "IckyGrub" channel of YouTube were made from a download of that video from MegaUpload.

Warning: Watching the unaired pilot may be a bit painful. It's nowhere near so good as episode 1 of YA as aired in many respects, including acting quality; Somerhalder and Famglietti, in particular, improved their acting skills markedly between the autumn of 1999 and the summer of 2000, or else benefited from much better direction in YA as aired than in the unaired pilot. The unaired pilot episode seems interesting chiefly for the insights it offers into how YA turned out, strangely, to offer so much content ill-suited to the WB's teen-TV target audience.

[wolkenfuehlen]

I totally missed this post. Thank you so much for uploading! I know there's tons of people that appreciate it because they've never seen the unaired pilot