I recall watching Hello Tomorrow which was a quirky atompunk themed comedy from Apple. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t especially funny - but it had a charismatic affable liar as a lead that you found sympathetic despite his sleaze, and gave huge pre-war Fallout vibes. Apple silently cancelled it some time ago.
I would also argue Peacock’s attempt at Brave New World. Reimagined for the modern era (because really it had to be) and probably took more from Westworld than it did Brave New World, but it was doomed by being a Peacock original.
Clerks, the animated series.
The movie Clerks is a no-budget comedy about two schlubs working retail and yapping. Kevin Smith & Scott Mosier pitched a quirky adult cartoon, back when that was reasonably novel. They shopped it around to everybody. UPN offered 13 episodes. Smith went with a surprise offer from ABC, whose audience was mostly children and old farts. They wanted to widen their demographics to young adults. So naturally they did a test screening consisting entirely of children and old farts, who haaated it.
Exactly two episodes were aired, out-of-order, and then it was cancelled. I watched both live and had no idea at-the-time I’d seen the entire broadcast run. The premiere was a fake clip show. All six episodes were dumped onto DVD, then aired once on Comedy Central to fulfill contractual obligations.
Most of the dumb shit in Kevin Smith movies would honestly work better in episodic television. Even people who can’t stand Mallrats would be more amenable to a short format with a sillier tone and no ability to use vulgarity as a punchline. They had the right brand of deliberate stupidity. It’s not mindblowing, but it was a working substrate for several excellent deadpan comedy actors and a writer who cannot shut up. ABC suffered a petit version of the development / broadcast disconnect that saw Fox snuff out a dozen promising shows for not being The Simpsons.
And I guess Korgoth Of Barbaria never got picked up.