Smothered - Unaired 2011 Pilot (Patreon)

Marcia Gay Harden, Adam Arkin, Brooke D'Orsay, John C. McGinley

Directed by Andy Ackerman

Love isn't a competition. No, wait; that's exactly what it is for Zack's (Kyle Howard) and Gillian's (Brooke D'Orsay) parents, who swoop down on L.A. for their granddaughter's first birthday. Zack and Gillian are  about to learn that "family" can sometimes be a four-letter word. Zack's  parents (Marcia Gay Harden and Adam Arkin) are wealthy East Coast  Jewish and Gillian's (Julie White and John C. McGinley) are small-town Southern charm, but Zack and Gillian have a great relationship despite  their different upbringings. Of course, with their parents visiting,  Zack and Gillian realize that the best they can realistically hope for  is not to turn on each other - and they can only manage that for less  than a day. They're constantly pushed to the edge of an emotional  breakdown as they struggle to keep any of a hundred flare-ups between their parents from becoming an uncontrollable firestorm of  passive-aggression and personal attacks. Whew, talk about exhausting!  Even before the visit, Zack and Gillian are counting the minutes until  their parents' visit is over ... but then they learn that it never will  be: both sets of parents are moving to L.A. From Friends alums Andrew  Reich and Ted Cohen comes the hilarious multi-camera comedy, Smothered, a  delightfully skewed look at navigating the challenges of having your parents be a part of your child's life - without letting them completely take over.

The Alphabet passed on 10 other pilots - comedies "Bad Mom," "Lost &  Found," "My Freakin' Family," "Other People's Kids"; dramas  "Georgetown," "Grace," "Hallelujah," "Identity," "Partners," "Poe" -  while multi-camera entry "Smothered" is said to still be in the mix. Update, Smothered has officially been passed over with no logical time slot.