NBC Hits CTRL+Z

In December 1989, NBC had a pilot nobody wanted. "The Seinfeld Chronicles" had tested as one of the worst pilots in network history, the president of entertainment called it "too New York, too Jewish," and Fox had already passed. The show was dead. Then a specials executive named Rick Ludwin canceled a Bob Hope special on his own budget and used the money to order four more episodes, the smallest sitcom order in American television history. But what if he doesn't? What if Ludwin lets the pilot die the way everyone at NBC expected? What happens to Larry David? What happens to the next 35 years of American comedy? And does the last great shared audience in American television history ever exist at all?