As weird as a show like Louie can get, FX isn’t necessarily TV’s main home for cool and out-there stuff. The network has aired about a thousand episodes of Charlie Sheen’s Anger Management, after all. Now, further dashing the hopes and dreams of cool and out-there TV viewers, FX has taken a look at the pilot for Charlie Kaufman’s How And Why and responded with a resounding “c’mon, some of us have work in the morning.” In other words, the pilot won’t be getting a series order at FX.
This comes via Deadline, which reports that the series would have starred Michael Cera, Sally Hawkins, and Catherine Keener, and it would’ve focused on a guy “who can explain how and why a nuclear reactor works but is clueless about life.” Apparently the higher-ups at FX were turned off by How And Why’s “unusual mix of comedy and drama,” and they were concerned that it “would not mesh well with the rest of the lineup.” Based on that small amount of information, we can determine that the show would’ve been exactly the sort of show anyone would expect Charlie Kaufman to make, but FX didn’t like it because it was exactly the sort of show Charlie Kaufman would make. Deadline says Kaufman is still shopping How And Why around to other networks, though, so it’s not necessarily dead yet.