Category Archives: 2010s

Five Ways to Ruin Your Pilot

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I’ve been trying to think of a good reason to write a post on this topic for a long time. The Mindy Project is as good a reason as any.

The Mindy Project has everything going for it, with Mindy Kaling having amused us for years as both an actress and writer on The Office. She plays a doctor; we haven’t had a good doctor comedy since Scrubs. As much as I hate the term “adorkable,” she is that, a point not unnoticed by executives who scheduled her show back-to-back with New Girl. She’s got B.J. Novak on board as a producer and a director (Charles McDougall) with The Office and Parks and Recreation cred.

The pilot was released a month early, along with those of some other Fox shows, on Hulu. Some people like it. I do not. Here’s why. It commits a number of sins that are sure to damn a pilot straight to hell. Continue reading →

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 →

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 →

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 →

Battleground

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UPDATE: 7/22/12 I wrote the analysis below having only watched the first episode of Battleground. I don’t usually approach these posts as recommendations for or against watching a show. Having now completed the first season, I say “Watch it. Watch it now.” This is one of those shows that the pilot does not do justice to until you can appreciate it as part of the larger picture.

For example, some of the stuff that makes you scratch your head in the pilot (like just when are these interviews supposed to have been recorded, and what the hell is Cole wearing?) are ambiguous on purpose. The final episode has me dying for season 2.

 

If you happened upon the pilot episode of Battleground, you might think you were watching a documentary. For a few minutes at least, Battleground defies the obvious comparisons to Parks and Recreation or The Office. As mockumentaries go, this one opens on a more serious note. There is a film-like look about it. Amber waves of grain and small hometown businesses flavor the opening credits. It’s a bit like the tour of Scranton that opens The Office, but without the underlying sense of sarcasm. Then… we meet Jordan T. Mosley, the show’s Dwight Schrute. But I’ll come back to him. Continue reading →