Dashed dreams are given a chance of rejuvenation as major networks give the go ahead to previously rejected pilots. This move has been successful in the past, such as when CBS first rejected Numb3rs, but then gave it a chance to air and watched it become a hit show. Will other shows be as lucky?

The mix of second chance pilots offers a bit of everything: drama, comedy, and adventure, and producers hope that viewers will be receptive.

With a staggering amount of new material pitched every development season, the resurrection odds for an older script that already has been passed on are minimal. But there are a few factors that can increase a show’s chances.

“The key word is passion,” Fox executive vice president of programming Craig Erwich says. “Somebody—it can be the writer, an agent or an executive—has to not allow the project to die. In the back of their minds, all executives carry about 10 projects they wish they’d made.”

For eight years after CBS passed on his drama The Truth About Joey Ice Cream, writer Paul Haggis tried to get the project, about four young Irish brothers in New York, made. Finally, NBC last summer picked up the script to a pilot and later to series titled The Black Donnellys. It didn’t hurt that in the meantime, Haggis had become one of the hottest filmmakers in Hollywood after garnering critical acclaim for writing Million Dollar Baby and for co-writing and directing Crash.

Shonda Rhimes, creator of ABC’s red-hot drama Grey’s Anatomy, also is a writer whose previous work is being revisited after she made it big. Rhimes is writing a new journalism-themed drama pilot for ABC for midseason 2006-07 consideration. In reality, that project was developed a year earlier than Grey’s and now is being reworked.

We’re hopeful that we’ll find some diamonds in this so-called ‘junk pile.’ Sometimes a second chance is just what a quality show needs.

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