Author Archives: meekthegeek

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About meekthegeek

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

Pramface

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With a title like Pramface, a show has to draw at least a little curiosity. Add to that a pilot titled “Like Narnia but Sexy,” and I’m in. I didn’t recognize any of the actors and had no pre-existing knowledge of this show, so titles were all I had on which to build expectations.

Now, in case you’re not up on your British, a “pram” is what we Yanks would call a “stroller.” It’s no spoiler that, by the end of this pilot populated with teenagers, somebody’s gonna wind up pregnant. (The concept holds promise for lots of other fun British slang, too, like “nappie” and “dummy.”) Continue reading →

Can you tell from the pilot?

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Can you tell if a TV show is going to be any good based on its pilot? io9’s Charlie Jane Anders recently posted How to Tell from a Pilot if a TV Show is Going to be Any Good and offered some insightful tips on how to tell. She makes some great points, like how writing oneself into a hole or having a boring “thing of the week” is a recipe for failure. But quite simply, the answer to the question above is “no.” Continue reading →

Welcome Back, Kotter (for real this time)

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You have to be pretty cool to get applause just for getting out of bed. Apparently Gabe Kaplan was that cool in 1975. The opening scene of the pilot (which is listed as episode 2) of Welcome Back, Kotter consists of his wife, Julie (Marcia Strassman — Is it me, or does she look like she could be a Deschanel?) attempting to fold him up in their hide-a-bed. He leaps up and the applause track roars.

When Robert Hegyes, aka Juan Epstein, died back in January I promised a post on this pilot, but never quite got around to it. (I do have a day job.) But I cannot let the passing of Ron Palillo, aka Arnold Horshack, pass unmarked. He may be the most memorable — certainly the most imitated — character from the show. Continue reading →

Go On

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Let’s face it, we don’t watch a pilot without attaching bias to the actors. (Except when we do. See my forthcoming post on Pramface.) So nobody but nobody is going to watch Go On without at least one prior Matthew Perry role in mind. And yes, his characters are all strikingly similar. If you’ve taken any notice of this show, you’re probably acquainted with its premise, so I won’t rehash it. So let’s talk about how casting choices influence our enjoyment of a pilot. Continue reading →

Make It or Break It

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Gymnasts are an ideal subject for a television show, as anyone currently enamored with Gabby Douglas, et. al., might attest. The sport provides the perfect convergence of teenage angst, body image pressure, and fame. (Alyssa Rosenberg at Slate recently wrote a thought-provoking article about evolving views of and pressures on gymnasts and other young female athletes.)

The creators of Make It or Break It, which has aired for three seasons on ABC Family, saw the opportunity to fill the 3-year-and-50-week gap between Olympics. They imagined a group of aspiring elite gymnasts all training together as teammates and frenemies, with a healthy dose of parental strife for the older audiences. Continue reading →

Episodes, and musings on “in media res”

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Is it me, or has it gotten really trendy to use the device known as in media res (“in the middle of things”) in pilots? It can be a very effective way to tell a story, obviously, since it’s been around longer than dirt. But I can’t help but feel like it’s become a crutch of sorts. As television has brought us increasingly sophisticated shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead, we expect more literary writing styles. So maybe certain devices get used for their own sake. Continue reading →

Arrow and Revolution

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It’s official. Bows and arrows are the hottest accessory for fall. I don’t know if Darryl from The Walking Dead started it, or if we can credit Katniss Everdeen, but two of the fall pilots screened at Comic-Con last night heavily featured this handy but rustic weapon.

Continue reading →

The Andy Griffith Show

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Since today the world is mourning the loss of Andy Griffith, I thought I’d take a look at his namesake show. I am coming at this largely unbiased, as I don’t really remember the show. I must have caught an episode or two as a kid and of course I remember the theme song, but that’s about it. Continue reading →

Shelf Life

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I’ve been hearing about the web series Shelf Life* for a while now at cons and such and keep meaning to check it out — already, it’s in its third season. Thank you to AProblemShared for blogging about the show and thus reminding me!

Shelf Life opens with a catchy speed metal theme song as we fly in through a window to a child’s bedroom and four superhero figures standing on a shelf. For a split second you could almost mistake this for animation, and when the characters first start to speak you hardly see the mouths move. But when their owner leaves the room, the action starts. Continue reading →

Louie

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This show has done very well in its first two season, and I don’t even remember how or when I first heard about it. But you can see how someone watching the pilot for the first time, with no prior knowledge of the show, would have been unsure what to make of it. I actually hesitated to go back and re-watch it for this post because it’s so painful to watch. Painful as in, uncomfortable, probably because it’s so real. Continue reading →