This isn’t going to be a real post. I just really wanted to have a category of TV shows called “world’s blankiest blank.” It’s the genre preferred by Philip J. Fry of Futurama, as he says in Episode 2.3, “When Aliens Attack.” It makes me laugh every. single. time.
There are more pilots that never get picked up than most people ever stop to think about. It can be funny or horrifying, or in the case below, a bit sad, to imagine a show that the world was robbed of seeing.
A couple of days ago, Bleeding Cool posted a clip from a 1969 clip of a Jim Henson-created Wizard of Id series, based on the comic strip by Johnny Hart. It looks like the plan for the show was simply to recreate individual comic strips with Muppets, rather than to create half-hour plotlines. Still, you can see the creativity at work here from Henson’s mind. And see if the Wizard’s voice doesn’t tug at your heart strings.
Here’s a list of seven other pilots that never got picked up, from OMG Lists. (It’s a couple years old, but there are some gems.)
Looking back at The X-Files, which premiered in 1993, it’s almost impossible not to compare it to a hundred other shows to air since. As a huge Bones fan, I’m most inclined to look for parallels to that show, and many have been drawn. Yes there’s the female-skeptic/male-believer duo, which apparently, was unusual in 1993. But upon re-watching, the X-Files pilot strikes a tone that is all its own.
The pilot opens, as many crime shows do, with a murder. But this is not two drunk kids having a frolic in the woods when they stumble onto a body. Instead, we witness a scene that, if you happened to just turn it on at that point, you might mistake for the climax of the episode. The victim displays absolute terror as a bright light appears over a ridge and a figure emerges from it. Cut to the police investigating the scene. We are briefly introduced to a detective who recognizes the victim as a classmate of his son, class of ‘89. Only after the crime of the week is established do we meet our protagonists.
Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is an FBI agent who is brought into the office of one of her superiors, where she is properly introduced to the viewer. She was recruited out of medical school to the FBI, where she has worked for two years. She is clearly a trusted member of the team, as they are asking her to check up on another agent with an established high-profile career who takes an interest in classified files. As she is briefed on her new assignment, a tall, silent man–who will later be known in X-Files lore as Cigarette Smoking Man–stands by…smoking a cigarette.
Scully heads to a cramped basement office to meet this volatile agent, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny). Mulder is painted as eccentric, but he’s not Walter Bishop eccentric. In fact, with his boyish charm he could be described as a cross between Walter and Peter Bishop. Later, his celebratory reaction at realizing that he and Scully just jumped through nine minutes is reminiscent of Dr. Emmet Brown. He’s a likeable character, as is Scully, but the immediate tension between them feels forced. It’s understandable that he is defensive toward her; he believes she is there to spy on him. Her defensiveness isn’t so easy to understand. We can assume the writers are going to work up some sexual tension between the two.
Legend has it that Scully had a boyfriend in the original script, possibly increasing the stakes. here is a hint of sexual tension when Dana strips down to her underwear to show Mulder some bumps on her back, after which they sit around and talk by candlelight. The scene reveals some of each character’s vulnerabilities. But there is no witty, flirtatious back-and-forth; just two people getting to know each other.
As one might expect, this work has personal meaning for Mulder. His sister was abducted, he believes by aliens, as a child, and the record of the case was covered up. It’s predictable, but you have to have your personal connection. (Bones’ mom was murdered, Olivia Benson was raped, Kate Beckett’s mom was murdered, Veronica Mars was raped… I could go on.)
There is something unique about this pilot, however. The episode overall has the feel of a true crime television special, putting into a realm of freakiness above normal network drama. Opening with the subtitle, “The following story is inspired by actual documented events,” and then using typewriter text to denote times and places add to this effect.
The plot, which involves mysterious deaths of several former Oregoneon high school classmates, gets relatively complex. Personally, I find the casting of all these middle aged white guys with receding hairlines confusing; I couldn’t keep straight the detective, the medical examiner, and the coroner. That being said, the show really is story-driven. There are no shots of gorgeous bodies and scenery like in the CSIs or any slapstick, such as sometimes works into Bones or Castle.
The detectives more or less solve the case, only to learn that all the paperwork they file on it immediately disappears. The show ends with the Cigarette Smoking Man taking the one piece of surviving evidence and filing it away deep in the Pentagon archives. This scene sets up the show for a long time to come.
Perhaps the lines that best encapsulate where we’re headed are when Scully asks, “Do you have a theory?” to which Mulder answers, “I have plenty of theories.”
Maybe it’s just me, but Traffic Light seemed to slip in under the radar in early February. There was little fanfare for this comedy that airs on Fox after Raising Hope, but it had some funny moments, so checking out the pilot was in order.
The show takes full advantage of hands-free telephone technology now widely available in newer cars. The pilot opens with all three of the main characters talking to one another as they drive, and gets really funny when one of them gets pulled over. This turns out to be more than just a one-off bit. This angle allows the writers a fresh, modern take on friendly conversation—does the world need another sit-com where everyone hangs out in a bar? It also underscores an element of the zeitgeist; we’re all connected, all the time, even when we’re ‘alone.’
The three main characters are introduced as they speak, with subtitles giving their names and relationship statuses; these are completely unnecessary, as the dialogue does a perfectly fine job of filling us in.
Mike (David Denman, The Office) is married with a baby. Adam (Nelson Franklin, also The Office) is just moving in with his girlfriend. Ethan (Kris Marshall)’s only significant relationship is with his dog. Three different guys are in three different stages of life, giving the writers ample opportunity to riff on singlehood and relationships alike. One other piece of information is worked into the conversation. The 27th (of whatever month we’re in) is “Ben’s day.” There are a few more brief mentions of Ben throughout, but we have to wait until the end of the episode for payoff.
The two women rounding out the cast are Mike’s wife, Lisa (Liza Lapira, Dollhouse) and Adam’s girlfriend, Callie (Aya Cash). Lisa gets a great introduction. Mike is hiding out in his car, parked a block from his house, in order to sneak in alone time from his family. He explains this to his friends on the phone in such a way that we, the audience, don’t see him as an irresponsible jerk but rather as just a guy who wants to watch Ironman in peace. Lisa surprises us—and him—by showing up at the car to nonchalantly hand off the baby. She then heads off for a jog, shouting, “love you!”
It’s refreshing that Lisa’s not a stereotype; either a nagging wife who beats her husband into service or a hysterical prima donna who cries when he bails. So far, so good. Then, however, things start to spiral into sit-com 101. Of course, one of the characters has to be a lawyer and one has to be a journalist. Lisa starts nagging Mike to go to some work function with her, and even if she lacks in nagging capacity, Callie more than makes up for it. Nagging leads to lying and manipulating when Adam has to get out from under her thumb to hang out with the guys.
The plot devolves further with some nonsense about Mike having to dress as a wrestling clown for Adam’s boss’s son’s bar mitzvah. Finally, we get to a resolution that reveals who Ben is, or rather was, and thus the bond shared by the three guys. It’s a nice, sensitive moment, ala How I Met Your Mother, albeit with a strained metaphor for the “traffic light of the title.” Once can only hope that the attempted tear jerker won’t become the hallmark of each episode.
Let’s play pretend. Let’s pretend that we don’t know Charlie Sheen has gold teeth or what he truly thinks of Chuck Lorre. Charlie Sheen is a movie star who made an unfortunate foray into television taking over for Michael J. Fox on Spin City. And Jon Cryer is just Duckie. And these two guys who we last cared about in the 80s are co-starring on a new show called Two and a Half Men.
Charlie Sheen’s character, Charlie Harper is painted as a womanizer literally from the first seconds of the pilot. He’s in the bedroom with a woman. When she leaves the room to change into a lacy negligee, another woman calls the answering machine to tell Charlie off. The laugh track is kept busy with sex jokes for the first minute and a half.
The next voice on the answering machine is that of Alan (Cryer), Charlie’s brother, who announces that his wife has thrown him out. Thus the premise for the show—Alan wants to stay with Charlie, where he will surely be in the way of Charlie’s love life. In fact, he’s already there on the other side of the bedroom door. In the conversation that follows, we find that Alan, the brother who has been married for 12 years seems to know far less about women than the single Charlie. Also, it’s slipped Charlie’s mind that Alan has a 10-year-old son, Jake.
The jokes fly fast and furious. Alan has brought his own sheets to sleep over. He’s been named Chiropractor of the Year. Charlie gives a rundown of his cush life, which includes midday margaritas and sundeck naps.
The next morning Charlie opens his eyes to find a pasty little boy face hovering over his bed. Jake (Angus T. Jones) is not a cute TV kid. He’s a pudgy, dorky kid, one used to structure—eating lunch at a certain time, drinking a specific brand of milk. Charlie doesn’t do structure. Jake’s presence sets up some no-duh commentary on adult life, i.e., “If [wine] makes you feel bad, why do you drink it”? Charlie quickly learns of another advantage; the kid is a babe magnet. “You’re better than a dog,” Charlie delights in telling him.
In this episode we meet Judith (Marin Hinkle), Alan’s uptight wife who believes she might be gay and Evelyn (Holland Taylor), the guys’ well-dressed, no-nonsense mother. We also learn early on that Charlie has a stalker who calls him “monkey man.” She’s a cute neighbor, Rose (Melanie Lynskey) who claims to be the maid and does nonsensical things like gluing the kitchen cupboards shut. We know to expect a lot more of her.
The revelations of Charlie’s degradation continue throughout the episode. “Charlie is great with kids,” Alan assures Judith. Cut to Jake playing poker with a bunch of men in a smoke-filled room. In retrospect, it’s easy to wonder if Charlie Sheen is even acting; he doesn’t even have to respond to a different name.
A lot of Alan’s humor comes from his pained facial expressions. He naively clings to the belief that he and Judith are just “working things out.” He’s so uptight one wonders how he fathered a child in the first place. There is no end of potential jokes in this odd couple scenario. (As a side note, Alan’s character bears an uncanny resemblance to Felix in the 1968 film The Odd Couple.) It takes a new tone, though, one that was perhaps more irreverent than network sit-coms tended to be in 2003.
Alan and Jake try living with Evelyn, but Charlie asks them back. It seems that the love of a kid has put a tiny crack in the walls around his party boy heart. Clearly things don’t work the same way in real life.
UPDATE: 5/13/11 Ashton Kutcher has officially been cast in Two and a Half Men.
It seems like you can’t go a day without hearing about another upcoming reboot of an old movie or TV show. Currently, viewers of the small screen are speculating about new takes on Charlie’s Angels, Wonder Woman, Beavis and Butthead, Dallas, Miami Vice, Teen Wolf… there’s even been the threat of a Bryan Fuller-helmed Munsters remake.*
A pilot for a reboot has a unique task. There is the assumption that most viewers are already familiar with the property, and there is going to be a niche audience that is much more than familiar. The diehard fans are poised to critique every detail. So what makes a pilot for a reboot successful?
There are two ends of the spectrum when it comes to approach. At one end, the pilot could say to the viewer, “Forget everything you knew about previous incarnations of this property.” The story basically starts over, in the present day. V is an example. Viewers need not have a clue about the 1980s mini-series and following TV series. In fact, they might be better not having seen the original and having the whole lizard reveal spoiled for them.
At the other end, a pilot can dive in to a storyline already in progress. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles does this really well. We last saw Sarah and son John in 1991, when John was about 12 years old, so the show now has to bring us up to 2008, when it debuted. The pilot opens in 1999 and, staying faithful to the timeline set forth by the movies, John is introduced as a teenager. We learn in the opening scene Sarah is haunted by the same nightmares of worldwide destruction that we remember. In order to get us to the right year, the writers have the new Terminator, played by Summer Glau, bring the characters forward in time to 2008. If you’re actually new to this, it’s likely you just won’t care about these characters. It’s also likely you’ve been living under a rock.
On the lighter side, 90210 stuck with the timeline set forth by its predecessor, Beverly Hills 90210. The newer show had some fun updating viewers on the lives of characters we once knew, even bringing some of them back so we wouldn’t always be stuck remembering them with hideous hairstyles.
According to Ramon Rodriguez, who has been cast as Bosley, the new Charlie’s Angels is set to go in a new direction. However, the movies already took a big step away from the camp of the original series. So what, exactly, are they moving away from? And do we care? Does a show’s pedigree matter, or only that it’s good?
There’s still a long way to go with all of the aforementioned reboots, and no telling how much restructuring they will go through on their way to the airwaves—if they even make it that far. Then will each one be a 90210? Or a Melrose Place? Once they debut, fans will no doubt have their expectations well in place.
*Here’s an update on the Bryan Fuller Munsters remake, 8/11/11
You’d be forgiven for having never heard of Project G.e.e.K.e.r., an animated sci-fi series that aired for just three months in 1996. And, you wouldn’t be crazy for thinking that the protagonist kinda looks like a worm; or that he sounds an awful lot like Philip J. Fry. Actually, the only two reasons worth watching this little show are that Doug TenNapel of Earthworm Jim fame created it and Billy West voices Geeker.
The animation is after school quality. After school in the mid-90s quality. We didn’t demand much from our animated series until later in the decade when we started to see more of it in prime time, with shows like Futurama and King of the Hill. Futurama fans watching Project Geeker today may get a brief second of déjà vu; both pilots open with a voiceover by the main character (played by the same dude, you remember) pontificating, “The future…” before explaining things to the audience. (Of course, in Futurama, it’s a goof, as it turns out that Fry is explaining a video game. Have I mentioned that Futurama rocks?)
As with a lot of kids’ shows—I’m assuming kids were the target audience—the premise is explained fully in the opening so the pilot could just as well be any random episode. The plot of this one doesn’t matter. Something about a destruct sequence. The overall plot of the series is that an evil genius, Moloch (Jim Cummings, most recently of Gnomeo and Juliet), is trying to track down the AI he created. The AI is Geeker, or Project GKR, and he wasn’t quite fully baked when he was stolen. Now he is in the hands of a voluptuous cyborg whom he calls Becky but who calls herself Lady MacBeth (Cree Summer, of a million different projects including Dragon Age: Origins). Brad Garrett, who I didn’t even realize has done a ton of animation, plays a big talking Tyrannosaurus who hangs out with them. The trio runs around trying to escape the reach of Moloch, while Geeker shape-changes, getting them in and out of various scrapes.
What else can I say? It’s a kids’ show. There’s a lot of noise and color and predictable jokes. The bad guy talks like a Bond villain. Geeker is kind of loveable, though. He’s one of those unlikely heroes who succeeds by screwing up. Kind of like Jar-Jar Binks. Wait, I said loveable. I don’t know, it’s a weird show. In prime time it could have been edgier and echoed the brilliance of the original Earthworm Jim game.
Given the current surge in nostalgia for the 80s, it’s a good time for Hulu to reintroduce the world to Square Pegs. From 1982, the show centers around two geeky high school girls trying to fit in. It stars Sarah Jessica Parker, even before Footloose and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. Her co-star is Amy Linker who, according to IMDB hasn’t done anything since 1985. What I remember about this show is that the two lead actresses were on the cover of Dynamite magazine. Anyone? Dynamite magazine?
The show begins with the two of them talking, in voiceover, about their intentions to infiltrate the right cliques. “This year we’re gonna be popular,” the one with a slight Northern accent declares, “Even if it kills us.”
The pilot opens, as you might expect, on the first day of school. As the opening scene unfolds, at a pep rally, we learn that the one offering popularity instructions was braces-wearing Lauren (Linker). Glasses-wearing Patty (Parker) is her willing follower on the road to coolness. (See that? Glasses and braces are universal shorthand for geeky. Apparently Linker was also wearing padding to make her look fat, but she is only Hollywood fat, if anything.)
Lauren’s superior knowledge of who’s who gives the audience a chance to learn some names and ranks. The dreamiest guy in school is Larry Simpson. The most popular girl is Jennifer (Tracy Nelson – one of those Nelsons), who has a Princess Diana thing going on. Being popular also means talking with a Valley Girl accent, peppered with ‘like’s and ‘ya know’s. “Gross me out the door” she declares in once scene, prompted by nothing.
The pep rally scene also introduces Jami Gertz as Muffy Tepperman, the Patty Simcox of the group, and the token black student, L.D. The latter performs a song-and-dance number with the hideousness only the 80s could conjure.
For some reason the kids are dressed like it’s February, but forgetting that, the fashion paints us squarely in the 80s. Not in the send-up way that shows depict the 80s today, but realistically. )Seriously, we didn’t wear Madonna gloves and stirrup pants every day.) There are some really specific references to pop culture of the time too, like to a particular Budweiser commercial.
It takes a few scenes to get a feel for the tone of this show. Although it’s a half-hour comedy, it doesn’t feel like a sit-com. It’s single camera, with a lightly used laugh track. There’s a weightiness to it that would be seen in later shows like Freaks and Geeks and My So-Called Life, and still later, Glee. It’s nice to see high school girls drawn as intelligent and articulate, even if they do still turn to butter in the presence of dreamy senior boys. Although Patty is heartbroken to learn that Larry isn’t into her, she responds with, “Larry, you needn’t reproach yourself.” Actually, much of the episode’s humor derives from her intense seriousness.
Oddly, we never see any of the characters’ home lives. In a show of this kind, we expect to see fights with parents, rule breaking and groundings. The pilot takes us from the pep rally, to lunch, to gym class, and finally to a school dance. As a side note and further sign of the times, the Waitresses appear as the band playing the school dance. It’s as if the writers are letting us know that school is these characters’ whole world, which is how it often feels at age 14. “My life is over,” Patty observes at the end. And we know her life will end in some little way every week, because that what happens in high school.
MTV is going to reboot the 1990s animated series Beavis and Butthead, so it’s a good time to revisit the original. Beavis and Butthead got its start at Spike and Mike’s Festival of animation, which is no surprise; it’s weird and disgusting, and really edgy for a time when the edgiest animated series on TV was The Simpsons. The episode that aired at the festival, the pilot, was “Frog Baseball.” The episode labeled 1.01 on the DVDs now available is something different, apparently from about a year later.
The show, as it aired, interspersed short snippets of story with longer stretches of Beavis (creator Mike Judge) and Butthead just sitting on the couch commenting on music videos. The DVDs seem to contain only the in-between stories, which are pretty weak on their own, and not even that funny. (I’m guessing this is an issue with the rights to the music videos.) The couch sections were what made the show different and, dare I say, relatable, to anyone who grew up with afternoons that grew long and boring as summer vacation wore on, in the era when MTV played videos. Who doesn’t enjoy making fun of Milli Vanilli?
The “plot,” to use the term loosely, isn’t important in this pilot. It’s about, well, frog baseball, which is pretty self-explanatory. It gives us a chance to meet these two slacker kids who love blood and hard rock. They wear T-shirts emblazoned with the names AC-DC and Metallica. When the game goes well—well meaning bloody—the characters air guitar anthems like “Iron Man.” Butthead is the ersatz leader of the pair, and Beavis is even dumber than him, if that’s possible. The outdoor landscape is dried out and bleak, and knowing now that Mike Judge tends to set things in Texas… it’s probably Texas.
When they’re back home in front of the tube, nothing else in life seems to matter. There is nary a parent in sight and, in the pilot, we don’t meet any other characters at all. (Later there are various neighbors and classmates, including the inspiration for the spinoff Daria.) The slacker ethos pervades every aspect including the crappy animation. But, for all their apathy, B & B have strong opinions about music. They don’t articulate these opinions with any grace; stuff either sucks or rocks. If it really rocks it warrants lifting one’s hands in devil horns and headbanging. The animation quality actually seems to tick up a notch as the characters’ hair flies back and forth in heavy metal abandon. When, before 1992, did we see an animated character headbang? The videos alternate between terrible and what is now terrible but was then cool. If you ever liked Axl Rose, even a little, you can probably find something to like here.
Although it spent its 3 seasons with less than stellar ratings, Roswell not only helped put the WB network (now the CW) on the map as a destination for teen girls, but paved the way for another show about an attractive high school student from outer space.
Roswell was based on a series of books called Roswell High, and the title itself serves as back story. The name of the New Mexico town is synonymous with UFO cover-ups. We all know what happened there in 1947. Don’t we? Seriously, do you know what happened? Because other than a vague idea of something about a crater, I didn’t. There may or may not have been an alien crash landing and the U.S. government may or may not have conducted autopsies on the victims. Read more about it here.
Even supposing the viewer knows nothing about Roswell, the show spells it out visually right away. We open with teen narrator Liz (Shiri Appleby) writing in her diary, introducing herself via voiceover. “Five days ago I died,” she says. “After that things got really weird.” Intriguing, if a bit cheesy. Then we find her at work in the Crashdown Café, a 50s-style, UFO-themed diner.
Liz and Maria (Majandra Delfino) are waitresses in schlocky theme uniforms complete with antennae. They clearly enjoy messing with truth-seeking tourists. It’s a special occasion in Roswell, the day of the Crash Festival. Presumably that’s a day when the residents cash in on their fame. (However, this is set in September and the Roswell “incident” happened on July 8.) Isabel points out that the dopey looking Max Evans (Jason Behr) keeps staring at Liz. Indeed, he is the first to spring to action when she is hit by a stray bullet fired during an argument between customers.
Max runs to Liz, where she has fallen to the floor bleeding from the abdomen. He places a hand across the wound, healing it. He breaks a bottle of ketchup and instructs Liz to say she broke it. He and his friend speed off in a Jeep before the authorities arrive. A pair of nosy tourists start poking holes in Liz’s story with the sheriff. Sheriff Valenti (William Sadler), we see, has his suspicions. He takes note of two empty Tabasco sauce bottles on a table where the boys were sitting.
We next meet Liz at school. She’s kind of a plain Jane, a good student, and for some reason dating a douchebag who is—big surprise—Sheriff Valenti’s son. She confronts Max and he admits with almost no reservation that he is an alien. He swears her to secrecy, but in no time she has dished to Maria. Playing a friend of Liz’s is Colin Hanks, but we don’t get to know much about his character yet.
We get to know two other aliens, the only others, Isabel (fresh-faced Katherine Heigl) and Michael (Brendon Fehr, aka Jared Booth on Bones). They put Tabasco sauce on everything; definitely a detail that is going to get them in trouble. Alarmed by Max’s revelation to Liz, the alien trio debates whether to flee. We get just enough details to understand their background. They were the only survivors of a crashed spaceship. They have been raised by regular human families for the past 16 years. Prior to that, they were in some kind of hibernation.
Mid-way through, the Liz voiceover returns unexpectedly and unnecessarily. It’s as if the vehicle we’ve been cruising along in hits a big puddle of teen romance molasses. It may be moments like this that led the show’s creators to focus more on the science fiction as the show progressed.
The plot then plunges from character description into a plot where Liz and the aliens have to outsmart the Sheriff. Though it seems the most natural thing for the aliens to leave town, that wouldn’t leave much of a television show. So we know they’re hanging around. We’re left to see how Max and Liz will get together—because of course they will—and how the aliens will continue to allude the authorities. The pilot balances the mystery and the romance pretty well, so if you like either you might just tolerate the other.
Anatomy of a Pilot 