In honor of the series finale of its much longer-running American cousin, I thought I’d share a look back at the original The Office.
Seeing as this one came first I’ll resist the urge to point out which British character = which American one. 
There isn’t much to explain about the premise of The Booth at the End. A weird, nameless dude sits in a booth — at the end — in a diner and gives people cryptic assignments to complete in order to obtain things they want. It’s like The Wizard telling Dorothy to kill the witch, whom she’s never met and has no beef with, in order to go home.
Booth is a Hulu original series, but the episodes run the length of an ordinary televised show. That’s probably a bit long for a series of basically all bottle episodes. Continue reading
I did an earlier post of match-the-pilot title-to-the show, but here’s a fresh batch. Some are obvious, some are not. See if you can guess which shows’ pilots these are:
2. Serenity
3. The Beginning
4. Boardwalk Empire
6. We Just Decided To
7. The Man Trap
8. Movin’ In
9. Death Has a Shadow
10. Help Wanted
Answers after the jump. Continue reading
Elizabeth and Phillip as they look in their “everyday” life.
Sex on TV can be a cheap way to get attention, whether it’s in advertising or entertainment, shorthand for “look at this!” And a pilot is where, above all else, a show needs to grab attention. It’s the rare cable drama of the past ten years that doesn’t feature at least one sex scene in its premiere episode. The pilot of The Americans, which premiered on FX several weeks ago, features not one, but three of them.
It’s easy to view the ubiquitous romp in the sheets (or airport supply closet, or… wherever) with cynicism. In this case, however, the sex serves the story brilliantly, and I’ll get to why. Continue reading
I’ve always thought of this show as just okay, an amusing distraction if I happened to flip on a rerun. And, you know. Clark Gregg.
So I just saw the pilot for the first time. Structurally, it’s solid. It uses a twist on the familiar First Day of School pilot trope. The jokes are fairly predictable, but Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Gregg, as ex-husband Richard, carry it. Louis-Dreyfus has that dry, earnest sensibility that makes her seem oblivious that everyone’s laughing at her. By contrast, Gregg wears that omnipresent smirk that makes you think he’s in on every joke–including the ones of which he’s the butt. He exudes coolness even in a multi-camera sitcom environment. Continue reading
Point number one about the Boy Meets World pilot: Topanga isn’t in it. So if you’re watching for Danielle Fishel, skip ahead to episode 4.
I am a little too old for this show, meaning I didn’t grow up with it. It incites great love and devotion to 90s children, and I can’t quite relate, except to suppose maybe it’s their Growing Pains. If the pilot is any indication it’s pretty cheesy, but in a lovable way that makes you want to see these characters through their first world problems. Continue reading
Who else is on a J.J. Abrams high? I’ve been catching up on Revolution, binge-watching Fringe, and catching Star Trek whenever it’s aired on basic cable. (I do own it on DVD, but it’s always on.) And SO MANY Bad Robot/Star Wars/Star Trek mash-up memes.
We’ve come to associate Abrams with time- and universe-hopping, futuristic warfare, and badassery. All good omens for the new Star Wars. But you do know he created Felicity, right? That teeny-bopper mellow-drama from the era of Dawson’s Creek? Fanboys and girls, I think this show warrants some examination. Continue reading
If you’re at all into science fiction, I don’t have to convince you that Isaac Asimov was an amazing guy. He wrote about a zillion books and imagined worlds and technology that laid the foundation for science fiction as we know it. He coined the term “robotics,” for frak’s sake. But did you know he was working on a television show when he died? He shot a pilot episode, and the footage has been collected into a four-part video called Visions of the Future.
I admit when I first heard this news, I was hoping the imagined show was a drama — something along the lines of I, Robot meets The X-Files. This is not that.
It may seem that the cast of Diff’rent Strokes is competing with the cast of The Golden Girls to see which beloved sitcom can have the last actor standing. (Of the four central characters from each, three are no longer with us; Rue McClanahan, The Golden Girls‘ Blanche and Gary Coleman, Diff’rent Strokes‘ Arnold, left 80s television fans mourning in the very same week in 2010.) They’re tied, as of this past week, when Conrad Bain, who played Philip Drummond, passed away at age 89.
Bain was known to the world well before Diff’rent Strokes, having co-starred on the long-running series Maude (along with Golden Girl Bea Arthur, which gives me an idea for a new game, Six Degrees of Golden), among numerous other screen and stage credits. But he is probably well-remembered to many who were children during the time he was playing the most generous millionaire dad on the small screen. Continue reading
Last night, TBS premiered Cougar Town to much ballyhoo. This wasn’t a pilot; Cougar Town lived on network TV for three seasons, much of that time perched atop the bubble. (You can check out my impressions of the pilot here.)
I didn’t stick with the show for very long. I know there’s wine. I know there’s a cul-de-sac. And I’ve heard that Jules and Grayson got together — hardly a surprise, based on the pilot alone. Even from the beginning the title didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, and from what I’ve heard, made less so over the years. I honestly didn’t think the show would last long. (After all, how many Tom Petty songs are there?) Continue reading
Anatomy of a Pilot 