George Clooney Helped Make An HBO Series That Was Canceled After One Season

George Clooney is a revered Hollywood figure with an esteemed career and good reputation. The best George Clooney movies are some of the best movies of the last several decades, and outside of that one time he played Batman, the man can seemingly do no wrong. But Clooney actually has a few questionable entries on his filmography. "Unscripted," the 2005 comedy drama series he produced and helped direct, is one example. 

True to its name, "Unscripted" was mostly improvised by its cast, which included Bryan Greenberg, Krista Allen, and Jennifer Hall playing fictionalized versions of themselves. The trio improvised their way through scenes that depicted them as struggling actors looking for their big break under the guidance of their acting teacher, Goddard Fulton (Frank Langella). Langella wasn't the only Clooney affiliate involved with the show either, as several of the star's A-list friends showed up throughout the first and only season. Sadly, that wasn't enough to save "Unscripted" from being canceled after its ten-episode run.

Clooney executive produced "Unscripted" alongside Steven Soderbergh and Grant Heslov. This was the second HBO series from Clooney and Soderbergh following their similarly improvised 2003 comedy drama "K Street," a satire of Washington lobbyists. But Clooney wasn't just producing "Unscripted," he also directed the first five episodes, while Heslov — with whom Clooney collaborated on the 2005 film "Good Night, and Good Luck" — oversaw the back five. With such talent, an interesting (if slightly self-indulgent) premise, and an approach that involved using the cast and crew's real-life Hollywood experiences, "Unscripted" really should have been better than it was.

In a New York Times article, George Clooney explained how "Unscripted" was based on the cast and crew sharing "acting horror stories" around which episodes would be built. The show was also originally designed to focus on a single character. "We actually called the show 'Bryan Greenberg' for a while," Clooney told The Times. "But then we realized we wanted to focus on an acting class." 

In the show, Greenberg, a former regular on of one of the greatest teen TV shows of all time, "One Tree Hill," plays a version of himself who frequently winds up in embarrassing situations. His casting in "One Tree Hill" is even incorporated into "Unscripted," with Greenberg's character being given a series regular role on the show before being fired. Interestingly enough, fellow "One Tree Hill" star James Lafferty also incorporated his experience of having starred in the teen drama when he played an actor who formerly had a hit series in "Everyone Is Doing Great."

Otherwise, "Unscripted" follows Krista Allen as she struggles to overcome being type cast as the attractive girl. Meanwhile, Jennifer Hall remains determined to maintain her hopefulness in an industry that couldn't be more cynical. All three of the main cast benefit from the guidance of Frank Langella's acting teacher Goddard Fulton, but they still struggle with the vicissitudes of the Hollywood system. 

Along the way they encounter numerous guest stars including pals of Clooney such as Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves, and Noah Wyle who prior to Clooney leaving "ER" in 1999 had co-starred with him on the NBC medical drama for five seasons. Even Greenberg's fellow "One Tree Hill" star Barry Corbin shows up at one point.

"Unscripted" is one of many shows canceled after one season and today it's hard to find beyond some low-res YouTube videos. At the time of writing, it isn't even on HBO Max. Like so many short-lived shows throughout TV history, then, "Unscripted" teeters on the verge of becoming lost media. The series' chances of being preserved certainly weren't helped by the contemporaneous reviews, which weren't as dire as the reviews for, say, Steve Carell and Tim Curry's similarly short-lived sitcom "Over the Top," but weren't exactly glowing either.

In his review for AV Club, Nathan Rabin called "Unscripted" "the TV equivalent of junk food: wildly addictive, yet almost wholly without substance." Meanwhile, Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle described the show as "a miss," writing: "There's nothing entertaining or even enlightening about the series or the actors involved." On the other hand, The Washington Post's Tom Shales claimed to have been "utterly embedded" by the end of the first episode, and saw the series as a story about "striving to succeed at anything" rather than a self-indulgent story about Hollywood made by Hollywood insiders.

Sadly, Shales' take wasn't enough to save "Unscripted," which had so much going for it that it should have lasted at least slightly longer than it did. The show debuted the same year as "The Office," and featured a similar hand-held, mockumentary style which indicated Clooney and his cohorts at least understood that TV was evolving from the days of the multi-cam sitcom. Alas, the show was missing something crucial. If you can find "Unscripted" in 2026, maybe you can decide for yourself what that thing was.