Author Archives: meekthegeek

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About meekthegeek

Writer, animal lover, environmentalist, pop culture fanatic, and Star Wars fan.

Silver Spoons

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Yes, Silver Spoons, the sit-com from the 80s. We Gen X-ers tend to have fond memories of this show, up there with Diff’rent Strokes and Gimme A Break. But do we remember how it all began?

It’s just another day in the life of millionaire Edward Stratton III (Joel Higgins)—riding a toy train, playing the full-size arcade version of Pac-Man—until his accountant shows up to inform him that he’s squandered all his riches. Not five minutes later, a tow-headed military school student (Ricky Schroeder) shows up to announce that he’s Stratton’s son. Stratton reacts to these two pieces of life-changing news with uncanny calm. And, man, it’s amazing they didn’t wear out the laugh track.

Computers were new and exciting in 1982. When little Ricky Schroeder tossed of the phrase “random access memory,” most viewers probably had no clue what that was. Computers run everything in the Stratton mansion from the drapes to the bank accounts, and we understand that the kids is going to have a better understanding of the technology than the father.

Ricky plays dumb with the accountant, who demonstrates how to use the big, mysterious computer with the clunky telephone modem, to view Stratton’s finances. This leads to the revelation that the accountant is a big, fat crook.

Stratton sends Ricky back to school, then regrets it, and—dressed a swamp thing—asks him to return and live in Chateau de Pac-Man.

Two-thirds of the way through we get a brief introduction the freaking adorable Jason Bateman as Ricky’s classmate. (We have to wait two years for Alfonso Ribeiro.)

It’s kind of amazing now the way emotional life decisions are glossed over like deciding what to order at Jack-in-the-Box. I guess that’s why, back then, “very special” episodes stood out as shark-jumpers. The very mention of sadness warranted a character speaking to the camera at the end, telling us the number of the national suicide hotline.

I think that today, even on sitcoms, crises are treated with a little more seriousness. Maybe in the carefree, big-hair 80s we just weren’t ready.

Alias

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The pilots I’ve written about so far are ones that I was analyzing in hindsight, having seen nearly all subsequent episodes. You find more meaning in things when you already know where they’re headed. So I decided to watch and write about a pilot for a show I had never seen. I picked Alias, because it was listed by TV Guide in 2008 as one of the best pilots of the past 10 years.

We open with Jennifer Garner being tortured and sporting reddish-orange hair reminiscent of The Fifth Element. Seconds later, we find her in a contrastingly normal environment, a college classroom—a flashback? As she is leaving class with her boyfriend, there is brief mention of her part-time job at a bank, before the boyfriend surprises her with a sappy marriage proposal.

Somewhat predictably, it turns out the “bank” is a front for an international spy operation, an elite branch of the CIA. Garner’s character, Sydney, leads a double life. She’s a newly engaged grad student and a hardass spy. We get that she’s super smart, she’s tough, she looks hot in formal wear. At home, under cover of the sound of the shower, she comes clean—no pun intended—to her fiancé. Which is bad. Really bad. Which lends a problem to the whole premise: if she’s so smart, why did she break this “unbreakable” rule by revealing her true occupation?

The fiancé is killed, Sydney doesn’t want to go back to work, work isn’t down with extended grief leave. As it turns out, she’s not really working for who she thinks she’s been working for. Oh, and her father is involved. We keep getting flashes to these torture scenes, which include Garner getting a tooth mercilessly yanked out.

When Sydney finally dyes her hair red, we get the connection between past and present. (I love how women’s hair color/length is used as a marker of time. This has been used in Veronica Mars, How I Met Your Mother, Defying Gravity, and outstandingly in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where Kate Winslet’s hair is practically a character itself.)

So the viewer is caught up to the present, Garner kicks some ass, flies home, dyes her hair back, and goes to work for the CIA—the real CIA—reporting to them on the company she was originally told was the CIA. So now we have a show about a double agent, hardened by the loss of love.

I must say I’m glad this show didn’t go with the overused premise of Hero Hiding True Identity from Loved Ones (Chuck, Smallville, the short-lived Bionic Woman). Although I’m sure that issue will come up. But overall the pilot was a real downer. There was one light moment with the proposal and a weak attempt at humor with Sydney’s best friend saying something like, “You won’t believe the day I’ve had.” But unless you’re really into spy shows (or Jennifer Garner), I’m not sure what about this pilot is so exciting. Maybe I just answered my own question.

How I Met Your Mother

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It used to be that you watched a show if you happened to be home with nothing else to do on the right day at the right time. There was the VCR in the 80s, but how reliable was that? Now that shows are available on DVD, and can be easily recorded with DVR, and are often available online, there is no reason not to watch shows from beginning to end (if a show warrants it). We are aware of continuity among episodes. As a side note, prior to the 90s, did anyone know the titles of individual episodes of shows, or that episodes even had titles?

As a result I think that television producers and writers have become more concerned with season-long or even series-long plotlines. Rather than each episode being its own one-off story where everything goes back to normal at the end (a recurring joke on The Simpsons) things change from episode to episode. I would venture to say that Friends pioneered this concept for sitcoms. Perhaps CSI did it for dramas, although I cannot claim extensive knowledge of that show or its spinoffs.

But I digress… How I Met Your Mother has a clear story arc. It’s right in the title. I took notice of this show part-way through its second season and quickly recognized that it needed to be viewed from the beginning to be fully appreciated.

The pilot opens, in the year 2030, with a voice telling two uncomfortable looking teens on a sofa that it is about to regale them with the story of “how I met your mother.” So we figure, that’s what the pilot is going to be about. Boy meets girl. Boy goes on date with girl. Boy professes love for girl way too soon. So is she “your mother”? For that matter, is the narrator “your father”?

Toward the end, Ted (the aforementioned Boy) tells Robin (aforementioned Girl), “if some hypothetical woman were to bear with me through all this, I think I’d make a damn good husband.” So our heads are dancing with visions of what the future will hold for this 20-something, good-looking, idealistic New Yorker. In his longtime friends Marshall and Lily, who have just gotten engaged, we see the possibilities. And in his smooth-talking, suit-wearing wingman Barney, we see the opposite possibilities. But we have possibilities.

The episode ends with the narrator telling the kids, “That, kids, is the story of how I met your Aunt Robin.” Irritated teenager: “I thought this was the story of how you met mom!” Narrator: “Like I said, it’s a long story.” How could you not keep watching after that?

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

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This is the pilot that interested me in pilots. I watched it twice before proceeding with the series. And, though I did make it through the whole series, it went steadily downhill. The critics tend to agree. Still, I can go back and watch the pilot as a stand-alone story. It’s compelling, it’s exciting, it’s funny, it’s dramatic. Now, any time I hear David Bowie’s “Under Pressure,” I picture the final scene of this episode.

This pilot uses what I call the Prodigal Son Formula. It’s about someone—in this case, two someones—returning to a place they used to call home, changed and matured, for better or worse. In addition, it uses the New Kid on the Block Formula, featuring a person beginning a new job (which could as easily be a new school, new neighborhood, etc.).

Even before we meet the aforementioned Prodigals and New Kid, however, we have The Crisis. We are onstage at the start of the taping of a live, weekly, sketch comedy show akin to Saturday Night Live, called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. As an actor whips the studio audience into a frenzy, the Producer, Wes (Judd Hirsch) is arguing backstage the head of Broadcast Standards and Practices over whether to include a controversial sketch in tonight’s show. In the first two minutes, we know that the show (the fictional one) is flagging and the Producer is near the breaking point.

Then we get glimpses into the control booth, the dressing rooms, the hallways… a tone of frenetic energy is set. There is a quick intro to a page who will come into play later in the series. Amid it all, Wes is incongruously calm. Then comes his meltdown. On live television. It’s a scathing diatribe on all-that-is-wrong-with-network-television. It’s uncomfortably funny and horrifying and train-wreck riveting. We see the pressure on Cal (Timothy Busfield), the control booth guy, to pull the plug. The suspense builds to…the opening credits.

So in just nine minutes, we’re pumped and ready to go. Then, we get introduced to the main characters. We meet Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet), the new President of the NBS network, who ominously predicts, “Nothing bad is going to happen on my first day, right?” We meet Jack Rudolph (Steven Weber), her new boss.

As the live (fictional) show continues, damage control is in full effect backstage. We can’t help but feel that writer Aaron Sorkin is giving us his personal take on the shortcomings of the industry.

Seventeen minutes in, we first hear the names Matt Albie and Danny Tripp. We know there’s history, potential controversy. At minute 19, after the second commercial break, we finally meet them: Matt, played by Matthew Perry and Danny, played by Bradley Whitford, recently off of the success of The West Wing. They are immediately fascinating characters with huge back story; for starters we learn that Matt and his longtime girlfriend, Studio 60 actress Harriett Hayes recently broke up because of the Star-Spangled Banner.

The downfall of this show may simply have been there was too much back story. Every line, every look, conveyed something about these characters and their history. The whole thing takes place in one night, and there is just so darn much happening. It’s totally engaging. But maybe too much for viewers who want to fold the laundry or pack their kids’ lunches while they watch. We get Matt and Danny’s relationship, their relationship to Jack and to Wes. We get a taste of Matt and Harriett’s relationship. We learn about the sketch that was cut from the show that set off this whole fracas—and that will become symbolic of the show’s themes.

 The characters end the pilot with a world of new possibilities before them. This is the way to end a pilot, with room for all kinds of things to happen. The moment is illustrated strikingly and poetically by the theatre house full of people—cast, crew, and staff—sitting expectantly before Matt and Danny, their new producers. And “Under Pressure” boiling up. It’s a great moment.

Anatomy of a Pilot

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First, an overview of pilots is in order.

A pilot serves several important goals, besides the overarching one, to get a show picked up by a network and to get a share of viewers large enough to ensure continuation.

These goals, as I see them, are:

  • To introduce most, if not all of, the main characters
    • Naturally we need to know who the characters are right away. We usually get a sketch, with just a few of their key traits, that often end up as stereotypes. (The pilot of Friends comes to mind.) Often there is one major character held back until a critical moment in a later episode. Viewers can sense whether this late-comer is planned part of the story, or a “jump-the-shark” addition.
  • To set up the world of the series—the atmosphere, rules, protocols
    • This is especially critical in science fiction or period shows, where the viewer isn’t familiar with the time or place.
  • To demonstrate tension between characters
    • There have to be sparks. A typical scenario is two complete opposites now have to live/work/play together. Bonus if they used to sleep together.
  • Set up potential problems/hurdles for characters to overcome
    • One or more main characters either start or end the pilot with some new challenge in front of them—an intense new job, a new pregnancy, a new relationship, the death of a loved one, the death of themselves… just about anything will do.
  • Leave space for changes or developments
    • Naturally, the pilot can’t sum everything up too neatly. There has to be someplace to go. Some pilots can stand alone as great stories, but the idea to is to keep viewers coming back.
  • Raise questions
    • Just what is this guy really up to? Why did that woman say that cryptic thing? What secrets does this creepy place hold? Is character 1 in love with character 2? (probably) Will she have the baby? (definitely)

 I think it is fair to say that most shows do most of these things. There are always exceptions. But exceptions are risky in television. So let’s get to it…

Why Pilots?

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I love television. There, I said it. I used to be one of those television snobs who simply didn’t have time for such a small-minded diversion. Actually, in college, in the early 90s, I really didn’t have time for television, what with 21 credit hours and up to four jobs at a time. After college, watching television just wasn’t part of my routine, so it took a while for me to catch on.

Now it seems there is too much to watch. Of course, there is more to watch, with cable venturing into drama and comedy series, and the internet making shows from around the world accessible. It has been suggested that television writing has improved in the past several years, in part due to a broader supply of programming. Writing has become more sophisticated, and plots more involved.

So where to begin soaking up all that programming? With the pilots.

The pilot is almost a genre in itself. (I am using “pilot” to mean first episode, not necessarily the episode used to sell the show. I realize that, within the industry, there is a difference.) The very embodiment of ambition, a pilot attempts to encapsulate all the glory promised by a series into one 23- or 44-minute episode that says, “This is going to be a great show! Please give us a chance.”

As a former English major, I love to dissect a written work. So that is what I intend to do with pilots. This is not a review site, per se; I will not give anything stars, thumbs, or tomatoes. I will voice opinions, but the aim is essentially to muse on the very nature of pilots—what makes a good start to a series, or a bad one, and what makes a good start to what turns out to be a flop, and vice-versa. So please enjoy Anatomy of a Pilot.