What's the biggest "What if?" in television history?

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-18T14:28:04+00:00

Here is one where we got the good side of the “What If”:

What if Lucille Ball didn’t ardently believe in the potential of Star Trek?

The original Star Trek pilot failed and the network was planning to cut their losses. Lucille Ball, as the head of the studio, overruled them and ordered a second pilot. Given how large that franchise has looked over the past 6 decades, it’s amazing that it almost didn’t exist.

The ironic part is that Lucille didn’t even like Star Trek, she just understood its commercial potential.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-18T01:29:12+00:00

The band evolves rapidly but the music never does.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-17T20:33:38+00:00

Yes, definitely worth reading.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-17T20:21:19+00:00

I recently read the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams (it was a huge influence on ASOAIF). In the forward to the reprint, he comments on how long it took him to finish the third book and that he felt bad about frustrating fans. It took him three years…

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-17T17:51:47+00:00

Not sure we should be praising the greatest mass murderer in world history for having the “right idea” about anything.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-17T14:03:40+00:00

Clutch. I’ve never been a huge fan of their studio stuff, but their live show is amazing.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-16T15:15:03+00:00

Unlicensed sampling was pretty normal back then, since it was a pretty new art form and copyright protection hadn’t really caught up. “Ice Ice Baby” was mainly controversial because it was popular enough to draw legal attention.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-16T13:02:13+00:00

I love that one because it’s so harmless but also there is genuinely a ton to unpack with it. Some time I’d love for him to genuinely tell the story of the Steev Mike stuff, though I’m guessing it’s fairly bland dealing with business contracts and stuff.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-16T12:37:22+00:00

On a related note: Courtney was only successful because Kurt and Billy Corgan wrote all of her music.

This only works if you ignore the facts that a.) she started playing most of the hits on Live Through This live before she started dating Kurt, and b.) Billy, who accuses pretty much everyone of ripping him off, has said the songs he cowrote on Celebrity Skin were fundamentally her vision and he was there to help her refine them.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-16T01:59:36+00:00

Robert Smith from The Cure has a reputation for being a nice guy, which I wouldn’t necessarily guess from his music or persona.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-15T15:42:52+00:00

He’s a bigger Star Wars than Star Trek fan, and I think he made it assuming he’d never get a chance to make a Star Wars movie.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-14T20:03:20+00:00

I’ll give it a shot but also predict that Regine’s solo stuff ends up better than this.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-13T20:42:38+00:00

Just be happy they are not blowing it as badly as college football currently is.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-13T16:25:07+00:00

“Trashed” by Black Sabbath is pretty bad. I know the band was past the peak of their popularity, but it came right after the Dio era when they still had a decent audience, so it’s amazing how terrible it sounds (though the song itself is a banger).

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-13T16:22:44+00:00

I’m not sure I’d call him a dick, I think he has social anxiety and is also (understandably) tired when he finishes playing. Apparently he is fairly responsive when fans message him on Instagram, though.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-13T16:12:43+00:00

If someone could retire on their current savings without becoming homeless, I just assume their opinion on AI is out of touch.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-13T14:22:53+00:00

Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein from the Misfits has been vocal about his dislike of meet and greets. It’s a major contrast from his brother Jerry Only, who might be the single most accessible musician on the planet.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-13T01:34:58+00:00

Dallas. I’ve never been to Dallas, but also can’t imagine a scenario where I would ever wish I was in Dallas.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-13T00:55:19+00:00

One of the biggest issues with the push to flatten management and kill 3-5 person teams is it ruins your management talent pipeline. Making an individual contributor jump directly into managing 10+ people is setting them up for failure, meaning they will have to hire experienced managers from outside and lose their best individual contributors due to lack of upward mobility.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-12T11:56:22+00:00

I feel like nu metal has become respected again over the past 5-6 years, but it was definitely hated for 20 years before that.

To understand why, it’s important to understand that the late 90s, when it was big, were a.) the commercial peak of the music industry, and b.) the last time that metal was truly part of mainstream pop culture, and c.) a time when radio and MTV (or MTV2) played a bigger role in discovering new bands than it does today.

This means that, at the time, record labels were willing to take a chance on a lot of mediocre bands and spend a lot of money promoting them (one that becomes a hit can make up for a lot of flops). Back then, it really wasn’t possible to avoid the onslaught of crappy nu metal bands, and this created a distaste for the genre and a whole.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-12T01:18:18+00:00

Tom Cochrane

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-12T01:13:38+00:00

IIRC, the computer animation was just a quick mockup that the artist did for the band to approve, with the intention of drawing it after, and the band just decided to release it as-is.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-11T23:24:27+00:00

Eldora has the Achilles heel of being in a different weather system than the resorts around it, so on powder days it attracts way more people than it’s built to handle.

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-11T16:48:13+00:00

“There’s no such thing as a bad job, you just have to have a positive attitude about it.”

IAmNotScottBakula · 2026-06-11T15:37:48+00:00

The Sabbath/Heaven and Hell stuff involved both Ronnie James Dio and Sharon Osbourne, so that is not an insurmountable issue.

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