Battlestar Galactica creator Ron Moore's doomed Fox sci-fi pilot Virtuality is finally getting a DVD release. The pilot, billed as a TV movie when it premiered last year, is heading to DVD on May 4.

Fox showed little faith in the intriguing drama that followed a crew of astronauts haunted by a malfunctioning VR system and a bit of space madness. After ordering several changes to the show in order to make it more "mainstream," the network scrapped plans for a full series and dumped the premiere on a random Friday night last June with little promotion.

Needless to say, nobody watched.

As we all know, Veronica Mars was refused a renewal for the 2007-2008 TV season for The CW. We also have heard of the plans for Rob Thomas possibly trying to retool the show, basically fast-forwarding the series to where Veronica is an FBI agent, no longer residing in familiar Neptune. Would such a show reboot appease rabid fans of the old show? Would it be enough to grab new viewers? And what would this new show look like?

Luckily for all of us, I've got a very reliable anonymous source who has seen a copy of the retooled Veronica Mars, and I have to say I'm in agreement with this person's assessment of the new show. It's only a matter of time before the episode leaks to YouTube, but for those who can't wait for that moment, here's my source's description of the episode with some commentary.

Remember the announcement from last summer that Comedy Central was going to pick up a Jon Stewart-produced pilot called Three Strikes? Well, it looks like Comedy Central has seen the pilot and decided to pass on the show, which follows an independent minor league team full of major league rejects. But in this world of viral video, pilots never die; they just get split into three parts and posted on YouTube, that's what. The pilot was "leaked" onto the service, and you can see all three parts right now, at least before Viacom orders YouTube to take it down.

Patrick Goldstein of the L.A. Times spoke to the show's writers, Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck, about the "second life" phenomenon failed pilots experience these days. They have nothing but good things to say about their experience with Comedy Central, but both the writers and Goldstein wonder what the future holds for networks now that failed pilots like this one and Nobody's Watching have found an audience online.

After I heard that Nobody's Watching, the failed pilot that was leaked to YouTube and became very popular, was picked up by NBC, I got a sinking feeling that we were going to start hearing about other pilots somehow making their way to the web.

Well, I didn't have to wait long. This article reports on the appearance of the pilot for a comedy called The Adventures of Big Handsome Guy and His Little Friend, on smaller video sites (I followed the links in the article and found a copy on Vidking.com; here's part one and part two). The pilot, based on a little-seen movie about two friends with very different viewpoints on life, was turned down by Fox for their fall lineup, but they still have an option to pick it up by December. The network is trying to get copies of the pilot removed from these sites, but is having a tough time. Hm. Think the creators would jeopardize their deal with Fox by leaking it? Stranger things have happened.