About meekthegeek

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

Heroes

Posted on March 27, 2012 by meekthegeek

I had planned on blogging about the pilot of Touch, but it was so uninspiring that instead I’m choosing to reflect on Tim Kring‘s last, far superior show, Heroes. Touch, the drama about an autistic child with the power to see connections among disparate people, definitely had a similar feel to it, and even overlap in subject matter. But the debut of Heroes was a landmark event and the start of a fan phenomenon that lasted until the show went off the rails in its second season. After watching Touch I thought maybe I was just romanticizing, but the Heroes pilot still holds up — it’s so good. Continue reading →

Mad Men

Posted on March 10, 2012 by meekthegeek

Unlike many pilots, where we dive headlong into action, meeting a spate of characters before the opening credits, Mad Men‘s “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” asks us to sit down and get to know its main character, Don Draper. We spend the pilot’s first six minutes with Don (Jon Hamm), not in the heat of battle on Madison Avenue, but in a quiet moment, alone in a bar. He scribbles thoughtfully on a napkin, mulling an idea. He launches an impromptu focus group of one with a waiter. He wants to know what motivates this guy–the average working man–to smoke the brand of cigarettes he smokes. (This brief encounter also gives us taste of 1960s culture vis-a-vis race, but more on that later.) Continue reading →

Abed’s Master Key

Posted on March 7, 2012 by meekthegeek

In case we weren’t already excited enough about the return of Community on March 15, the fine folks at NBC have decided to whet our whistle with some animated shorts. The obvious question: Why didn’t they think of this a long time ago? That animated holiday special in 2010 (has it been that long?) rocked.

The pilot episode of Abed’s Master Key is only a precious minute and 56 seconds long, but to fans so long deprived of a meal, these are succulent little crumbs. The episode just gives us a quick look at all of the main characters–the study group and Dean Pelton–hanging out in their usual spot, the study room that has seen everything from a zombie uprising to some Jeff-Britta coitus. Continue reading →

The West Wing

Posted on February 22, 2012 by meekthegeek

This show definitely needs to go on my list of Top Character Introductions in Pilots. While the whole episode is about the main character, the President of the United States (Martin Sheen), we only meet him in the last five minutes. His entrance is unforgettable; and his character is classic Aaron Sorkin.

When you’ve seen one or two pieces of Aaron Sorkin’s work, it’s easy to spot another one. Unless The West Wing is your first introduction to the genius behind A Few Good Men, The Social Network, Sports Night and yes, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, this pilot screams “Sorkin wrote me” the whole time. Continue reading →

The Writers Room

Posted on February 20, 2012 by meekthegeek

I thought a post on the original Crackle series The Writers Room would be a nice complement to my last post on 30 Rock. The Writers Room, which debuted in 2008 is what you would get if you distilled 30 Rock down to just the scenes in the writer’s room and shot it with a handheld camera. And took out all the humor. No, I’m kidding. Sort of. But there is an episode of Louie, where a group of writers has been gathered to doctor a screenplay, which packs more humor into 2-3 minutes that this web show exhibits in its whole pilot. I’m sure that its writers would say that’s because I just don’t get it.

The scribes of the web series work for a sketch comedy show hosted by Kevin Pollack (as himself). You may not know the name Kevin Pollack, but you’ve seen him. See? An interesting twist of this is that all of the writers play themselves. Continue reading →

30 Rock

Posted on February 15, 2012 by meekthegeek

It must be fun for TV writers to write about TV writers. Someday someone should write a show about TV writers writing a show about TV writers.

Tina Fey could not be a more perfect choice for the writer/actress around whom to build a sit-com about television writers. Not only is she a riot without being a stereotype but she was the head writer for the most well-known late-night sketch comedy show ever, airing on the actual network portrayed in the show. NBC’s willingness to parody itself and its longest running show gives this show comedic possibilities that it would not have otherwise. (Their parent company really does make ovens.) Continue reading →

Wonder Woman

Posted on January 29, 2012 by meekthegeek

The Wonder Woman series had a few false starts before the 1975 TV movie, which spawned the well-remembered Lynda Carter series. Even when it finally got off the ground, the show — full title, The New Adventures of Wonder Woman — only lasted one season before it was retooled and moved to another network (CBS).

In recent years, other attempts at bringing the DC Comics property to the small screen have failed, including one led by Joss Whedon. You could hardly escape last year’s debate about Adrianne Palicki’s pants. Why is bringing the Amazonian princess to life such a challenge? And what did the 1970s series get right that others missed? Continue reading →

Welcome Back, Kotter

Posted on January 26, 2012 by meekthegeek

With today’s passing of Robert “Juan Epstein” Hegyes, I am eager to review the pilot of Welcome Back, Kotter. I’m curious to see if I would even remember the pilot, because although I loved the show, I have only vague recollections of it. For the record, I always thought that Epstein was the cutest. (Sorry, John Travolta.) At the moment, I don’t have time to watch the whole thing and do it justice, so I thought I’d just mention a few details .

The show debutued in September of 1975. The pilot episode titled, appropriately, “Welcome Back,” was actually either the second or third to air depending on whether you believe Amazon or Wikipedia. The wacky order is a reminder of a time when sit-coms were totally episodic and you could figure out exactly what was going on by choosing any episode at random.

Here’s a clip:

The pilot is set on Gabe Kotter’s first day teaching at his alma mater, James Buchanan High School in New York City. He finds out that his students, the legacy of a gang he himself founded, are a bunch of aspiring young criminals. All of the main characters appear in the pilot, but I couldn’t say whether Epsetin shows up with a note signed “Epstein’s Mother” in this one. More later.

For even more fun here’s a “Where Are They Now?” for the cast.

A Few Recent Pilots

Posted on January 23, 2012 by meekthegeek

I haven’t been blogging much these past few weeks, but there has been plenty to watch. Here’s just a quick look at a few pilots I’ve caught recently.

Alcatraz

In case you haven’t heard, this is the latest J.J. Abrams tale of alternate realities. It tells the story of what really happened to all of the prisoners who were in Alcatraz when it was closed down. The pilot came with a bonus second episode on the same night. Two episodes were enough to worry me that show is just another procedural. If it’s just going to be about searching out the murderer of the week, we don’t care. Even if said murderers haven’t aged since 1960-whatever. Basically, it’s a cop-with-an-unlikely-partner show. The partner in this case is a comic book store owner (Jorge Garcia), so there’s tons of potential for geek jokes. Continue reading →

The Good Wife

Posted on January 22, 2012 by meekthegeek

The central character in The Good Wife, Alicia Florrick (Juliana Marguiles), doesn’t speak a word for the first three minutes she is on screen, but we learn a great deal about her. The first thing we see is her hand, clasped in that of a man. The two people walk to a podium in front of a sea of faces and cameras. It takes only seconds to paint the picture: Alicia, pale and drawn in a conservative grey suit, is the husband of a disgraced public figure. Her husband, Peter Florrick (Chris Noth), the State’s Attorney of Illinois, has been caught up in a sex scandal and resigned. Alicia stands dutifully beside him, the “good wife” the title has promised us. Continue reading →

Anatomy of a Pilot

A gooey dissection of television pilot episodes.

Author Archives: meekthegeek