From Sci-Fi Wire:

Creative Split Sank Pern

Producer Ronald D. Moore--whose pilot for a Dragonriders of Pern TV series was abruptly dumped by The WB--told SCI FI Wire that the network pulled the plug only days before production was set to begin in a dispute over the show's creative direction. "It's dead," Moore said in an interview. "We were supposed to start shooting the day before yesterday [April 2]. We were very, very close. We were shooting in Santa Fe [N.M.] We had the cast. We had the production team. We had the CGI [computer graphics]. We had the whole enchilada, and they pulled the plug last Wednesday."

Moore said he had been trying to develop a serious adaptation of Anne McCaffrey's popular series of SF novels of the same name. But The WB ordered a "dialogue polish" from a second writer, and when Moore saw the rewrite, he felt the series had changed "fundamentally." "It was a different show," he said. "I had tried ... to keep the spirit of the books alive ... and make it a classy, interesting show. And ... what was evident in the draft they commissioned, they wanted a different show. It was more Buffy-esque and Xena-esque. It was something they felt more comfortable with on The WB. ... There wasn't a way to split the difference. Ultimately, they decided we should just let the project go. It was their decision. It was very disappointing for everybody. ... A lot of people put a lot of hard work into it."