CS Weekly Archive > The Big Picture > 08/25/06

Setting a Course for Ratings Success:
The Seven Best Dramatic Pilots on DVD

By jason davis

There's a universe to be built. There're characters to be born. In television, these creations are the purpose of the pilot, but the writer creating these scripts must serve more than artistic sensibilities--TV is a business and a pilot must please network executives, advertisers, and an audience. The following are seven scripts that successfully created a universe while serving each of the masters above.

A TV pilot has a complicated dual purpose: it serves as the sales pitch to the network that will hopefully air the series, and must completely unveil the show's universe and characters to a new audience with only a handful of TV ads to prime them. Both the corporate and public audience must fall in love with these people and places if the show is to be a success. It's a tightrope every showrunner walks: too much exposition is tedious, too little leaves the viewer confused and disinterested. With all these burdens to bear, it seems unlikely that a pilot could ever succeed on all fronts. Truth be told, they rarely do, as evidenced by the tinkering viewers often notice in the first batch of episodes. As the new Fall season gets underway, here are CS Weekly's picks for the seven pilots, all available on DVD, that successfully introduce their worlds and characters while giving the viewer a healthy taste of things to come.

"Where No Man Has Gone Before" (Star Trek)
Written by Samuel A. Peeples
Aired: September 22, 1966, NBC
In an oft-related tale, NBC executives rejected Gene Roddenberry's original Star Trek pilot, "The Menagerie" as too cerebral for '60s television audiences. (Note: the pilot was titled "The Menagerie" until Trek's 16th episode took that title, causing the first episode to be renamed "The Cage" when it hit home video in 1986.) Despite being one of the most densely philosophical stories ever filmed for television, the story (of a culture that had stagnated due to god-like telepathic abilities and their attempt to use humanity to restore their race's former glory) would likely be a hard sell even today. It puts the burden on its audience, expecting them to understand the mindgames played with Capt. Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) with little exposition to assist them. The 90-minute episode's finale arrives with a bit of an unsubtle moral and a bittersweet end that still tugs at the heart even today. Alas, it was not for NBC, and Roddenberry was offered the then-unique opportunity to try again. He hired some friends to develop new scripts and eventually settled on "Where No Man Has Gone Before" by Samuel A. Peeples. Likely developed from an idea by Roddenberry (who often used the notion of men becoming gods with their frailties intact in his work, even penning a similarly themed episode of Star Trek shortly into the first season), the story provided the action and adventure that the network wanted along with the philosophical glaze Roddenberry had proffered in his own script. The story also introduced viewers to Capt. James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and better established the only returning member of the original cast, Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Though the pilot still lacks certain details, most notably Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley), it presents a basic sketch of the adventure coupled with social commentary that would become the show's hallmark -- sadly, NBC decided to air two lackluster installments ahead of it.

"Hill Street Station" (Hill Street Blues)
Written by Michael Kozoll & Steven Bochco
Aired: January 15, 1981, NBC
Whereas most pilots are designed to gently ease the viewer into the world of the series, "Hill Street Station" was more interested in keeping its viewers off-balance and unsure of what they were experiencing. Set in the Hill Street Precinct of an unnamed city, the series re-invented the police genre with flawed characters and an emphasis of the regular cast hitherto unknown in TV. Often cited as a major turning point in the history of the medium, Hill Street Blues imported the ongoing serial narratives of soap operas and fused them to the episodic structure of primetime drama to create a hybrid that felt like a self-contained unit, but was embellished by repeated viewing. Many of the show's trademarks found their root in the pilot, from the teaser's roll call through to the structural conceit of setting each episode over one day. The large ensemble cast whose personal lives were inexorably entangled with their police work provided quirk and pathos by the bucketload, and the pilot didn't bother to tell the viewer whom to root for. The third act out assured the audience that nothing was for sure on this series, and set the standard for the unpredictable turns the show would take in its historic Emmy-winning run.

"Pilot" (Moonlighting)
Written by Glenn Gordon Caron
Aired: March 3, 1985, ABC
Before it made a left-hand turn into metafictional, postmodern pastiche, Moonlighting redefined the guy-girl detective genre that pervaded early-'80s primetime while creating the most annoyingly exasperating romance on television. Despite the excesses of its later episodes, all the ingredients are on display in this two-hour pilot that kicked off a mid-season run of half-dozen episodes. After being swindled by her accountant, aging supermodel Maddie Hayes (Cybil Shepherd) decides to liquidate her remaining assets, which leads her to the City of Angels Detective Agency, operated by the sarcastic David Addison (Bruce Willis). Maddie and David serve as the two ingredients in a ticking time bomb of repressed sexual desire that will explode several seasons later, taking the joy of their childish flirtation with it and deflating the tension that drives the show. Still, the pilot sets up the characters and their tongue-in-cheek world with style -- the banter explodes off the page, promising an imminently quotable series with two memorable leads.

"Pilot" (Twin Peaks)
Written by Mark Frost & David Lynch
Aired: April 8, 1990, ABC
Introducing no fewer than 34 regular or recurring characters in as many minutes, the pilot for Twin Peaks does an impeccable job of providing enough quirks to keep the characters memorable while slowly revealing their relationships to other characters across its two hours of story. Ostensibly following FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper's (Kyle McLachlan) investigation into the murder of prom queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), the ongoing mystery would provide the framework for exploring the eccentric inhabitants of the titular northwest lumber town. This notion is clearly set up in the pilot, which sets in motion numerous mysteries to be resolved as the show progresses -- Ben Horne's (Richard Beymer) questionable real estate schemes, Dr. Laurence Jacoby's (Russ Tamblyn) secret psychiatric sessions with Laura, and the sheriff's (Michael Ontkean) secret romance with a wealthy community pillar, among others. With plenty of hooks to bring viewers back and a cornucopia of strange characters to explore, the Twin Peaks pilot practically guarantees an audience for the next episode. Sadly, the series itself often failed to live up to its pilot's promise, and the show was cancelled a little over a year later. (Though unavailable in Artisan's first season boxed set, the pilot is easily accessible via a Republic Pictures region-free NTSC release from Hong Kong and will hopefully soon find a domestic release on Paramount's upcoming DVD release of the series.)

"Pilot" (The Sopranos)
Written by David Chase
Aired January 10, 1999, HBO
Though the framing device of a North Jersey mob boss discussing his life with his psychiatrist would shortly become an integrated part of the narrative, The Sopranos pilot offers an excellent account of the series to follow. A postmodern riff of the mobster genre, the show centers on Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini): regretful of the complacency of the next generation, annoyed by the rigidity of his uncle's era, and balancing the demands of his family with that of The Family. Boasting an ensemble of vivid supporting characters with their own psychological foibles and insecurities, the pilot puts enough difficult personalities into Tony's life for a six-season run of panic attacks and nervous breakdowns. The Sopranos makes character its bread while strong thematic stories provide the butter.

"Pilot" (The West Wing)
Written by Aaron Sorkin
Aired: September 22, 1999, NBC
Truly finding its mark with the on-screen arrival of the irrepressible President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen), The West Wing's pilot focuses on the dialogue that would be the show's hallmark for the four years Aaron Sorkin contributed all but a few scripts. The White House staff is briskly introduced in an opening that bombards the viewer with verbiage and tosses off political lingo with an assurance that lends credibility to Sorkin's occasionally spurious turns of political jargon. Within minutes, the pecking order of PotUS's (President of the United States) staff is established, along with their foibles and political profiles. As would be the raisons d'être of the episodes that follow, the President's staff must diffuse difficult situations, spin unfortunate mishaps, and set policy in the face of overwhelming odds -- all while dealing with their own personal issues and subduing them in the national interest. Intriguingly, President Bartlet himself was only intended to appear in three or four episodes a season, but the character's appearance in the final moments of the pilot made such an impression that the format was amended post-haste.

"Pilot" (Deadwood)
Written by David Milch
Aired: March 21, 2004, HBO
Philosophically, Deadwood is the bastard child of two very unlikely televisual parents. Like Twin Peaks, Deadwood's pilot sets in place the machinery for a variety of tales to unfold. Akin to The West Wing, its diction is key to its often-vulgar characterizations. Together, the two concepts combine to create a postmodern Western, with HBO's freedom allowing the writers to portray an Old West unlike any other seen on the small screen. Sheriff Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) serves as the audience's avatar as he sets up shop in the lawless camp of Deadwood, where the newly retired lawman quickly falls afoul of the corrupt saloon owner Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) while earning the respect of the notorious Wild Bill Hickok (Keith Carradine). With the trail blazed for further intrigues, the pilot concludes with an off-screen Indian massacre that ropes the viewers in for the following installment.

Of course, there are other great pilots that start their respective shows off with a bang, but what good's a decent pilot if there's no way to screen it? Mission: Impossible (1966) hit the air running with a richly plotted start that set the format for a seven-year run (December 5 sees its release from Paramount Home Video). Then there are the pilots you never see -- the ones that, for one reason or another, never make it to series. The WB's Global Frequency, illegally making the rounds on the Internet, is a prime example of a show that didn't pass network muster, but could have (and has) found an audience. In the '70s, it was common for failed pilots to hit the air as movies of the week, a practice that's been continued in spirit by LA's Uncabaret, a showcase for shows that never were. Perhaps the changing nature of TV, the advent of the Internet and DVD, and the media savvy of today's audience will one day result in a wider availability of what once rested in the purview of suits and showrunners.

Jason Davis is the DVD Manager for CS Weekly, a contributing editor for Creative Screenwriting Magazine, and writes "TV Wasteland" for Cinescape.com. He lives and writes in Burbank.

Star Trek: The Original Series courtesy Paramount Home Video
Moonlighting courtesy Lionsgate Home Video
The Sopranos courtesy HBO Home Video

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