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A sitcom set in the Washington offices of the speechwriters for the President: Sound like a prime-time hit? It wasn't - in fact, it never even got a commercial break. So how did a highly talented television team launch such an ambitious pilot, only to watch it crash over and over again? In the spring of 1990, television producer Bruce Paltrow (The White Shadow, St. Elsewhere) granted author Daniel Paisner unlimited access to the New York-based production of his. Sitcom-in-progress, E.O.B. With a cast including veteran stage actress Mary Beth Hurt and Saturday Night Live alumnus Rich Hall, E.O.B. was one of the most promising shows on CBS's development slate. Production was to have taken less than two months, culminating in a hoped-for six-episode summer run on the networks. Over the next year, however, Paltrow's effort was folded, spindled, and mutilated by forces both beyond and within his control. The show, rechristened The. War Room, was shelved. So he and his colleagues tried again, this time in Los Angeles, in the spring of 1991, with a new cast (including St. Elsewhere's William Daniels, plus singer Gladys Knight), a new director, and a new title, Word of Mouth. This project,