Pilot
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A television pilot (also known as a pilot or a pilot episode and sometimes marketed as a tele-movie), in United Kingdom and United States television, is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell a show to a television network or other distributor. A pilot is created to be a testing ground to gauge whether a series will be successful. It is, therefore, a test episode for the intended television series, an early step in the series development, much like pilot studies serve as precursors to the start of larger activity.
A successful pilot may be used as the series premiere, the first aired episode of a new show, but sometimes a series' pilot may be aired as a later episode or never aired at all. Some series are commissioned straight-to-series without a pilot. On some occasions, pilots that were not ordered to series may also be broadcast as a standalone television film or special.
A \"backdoor pilot\" is an episode of an existing series that heavily features supporting characters or guest stars in previously unseen roles. Its purpose is to introduce the characters to an audience before the creators decide on whether or not they intend to pursue a spin-off series with those characters.
Television networks use pilots to determine whether an entertaining concept can be successfully realized and whether the expense of additional episodes is justified. A pilot is best thought of as a prototype of the show that is to follow, because elements often change from pilot to series. Variety estimates that only a little over a quarter of all pilots made for American television proceed to the series stage.[1]
Casting is a lengthy and very competitive process. For the 1994 pilot of Friends, casting director Ellie Kanner reviewed more than 1,000 actors' head shots for each of the six main roles. She summoned 75 actors for each role to audition, and she then chose some to audition again for the show's creators. Of this group, the creators chose some to audition again for Warner Bros. Television executives, who chose the final group of a few actors to audition for NBC executives; as they decide whether to purchase a pilot, network executives generally have ultimate authority over casting.[4] Since the networks work on the same shared schedule, directors, actors and others must choose the best pilot to work for with the hopes that the network will choose it. If it is not chosen, they have wasted their time and money and may have missed out on better career opportunities.[5]
Once they have been produced, the pilots are presented to studio and network executives, and in some cases to test audiences; at this point, each pilot receives various degrees of feedback and is gauged on its potential to advance from one pilot to a full-fledged series. Using this feedback, and factoring in the current status and future potential of their existing series, each network chooses about four to eight pilots for series status.[2] The new series are then presented at the networks' annual upfronts in May, where they are added to network schedules for the following season (either for a fall or \"mid-season\" winter debut), and at the upfront presentation, the shows are shown to potential advertisers and the networks sell the majority of the advertising for their new pilots.[5] The survival odds for these new series are low, as typically only one or two of them survive for more than one season.[2]
A premise pilot introduces the characters and their world to the viewer; it is structured so that it can be run as the first episode of the series if substantial changes are not made between the pilot and greenlighting. In the event the changes being made are so substantial that they would cause confusion to viewers, the pilot (or portions of it) is often re-shot, recast, or rewritten to fit the rest of the series.
The pilot for Gilligan's Island, for instance, showed the castaways when they had just become stranded on the island. However, three roles were recast before going to series, with the characters either modified or completely altered to the point where the pilot could no longer be used as a regular episode. As a result, CBS aired Gilligan's second produced episode, which opened with the same scene of the characters just stranded on the island (showing only those not re-cast), first; the story from the pilot from that point onward was largely reworked into a flashback episode which aired later (with several key scenes re-shot). Even Gilligan's theme song, which was originally done as a calypso number, was rewritten and recomposed to be completely different.
Another example is Star Trek, where footage from the unaired original pilot, \"The Cage\", was incorporated into the two-part episode, \"The Menagerie\", with the story justification that it depicts events that happened several years earlier. Conversely, the second pilot for Star Trek, \"Where No Man Has Gone Before\", aired as the third episode of the show's first season, even though it included some casting and costuming differences that set it apart from the preceding episodes.
If a network orders a two-hour pilot, it will usually broadcast it as a television film to recoup some of its costs even if the network chooses to not order the show.[6] Sometimes, a made-for-TV-movie is filmed as a pilot, but because of actors not being available, the series intro is reshot for the first aired episode. The original Cagney & Lacey movie co-starred Loretta Swit (of M*A*S*H fame) as Chris Cagney, but when she could not get out of her contract, they reshot it with Meg Foster, who after the first season was replaced with Sharon Gless; therefore, the original movie is not considered part of the television series, and is not included in the series collections on DVD. In some cases, this does not hamper broadcast, such as Jackie Cooper playing the role of Walter Carlson in the TV movie pilot of the 1975 series The Invisible Man, but being replaced by Craig Stevens for the remainder of the series; the pilot is still considered part of the series and released to DVD as such. Likewise, The Homecoming: A Christmas Story had an almost entirely different cast from the series it was intended to pilot (The Waltons), but both have been rerun for many years.
A proof of concept pilot usually takes place chronologically further into a series run than a premise pilot, to give network executives a better feel for how a typical episode would appear (since a premise pilot may have to deviate from a typical episode in order to properly introduce characters). Remington Steele used both a proof of concept and a premise pilot.[7][8] Proofs of concept were particularly common for game shows; in such cases, the pilot may be entirely or partially scripted (and thus, due to regulations passed after the 1950s quiz show scandals, illegal to broadcast in many jurisdictions) and use fake contestants and \"returning champions\" to demonstrate those concepts. The adventure series Lassie had both a premise pilot, \"The Inheritance\", designed specifically to air as the series' first episode, showing how Lassie's series owner, Jeff Miller, came to acquire her; and a proof of concept pilot, \"The Well\", showcased situations typical to the series, which aired well on into the first season of the series.
A backdoor pilot is a film or miniseries that serves as a proof of concept for a full series,[9] but may be broadcast on its own even if the full series is not picked up.[10] The term may also be used for an episode of an existing television show that serves to introduce a spin-off. Such backdoor pilots commonly focus on an existing character or characters from the parent series who are to be given their own show.
For example, to introduce A Different World, built around The Cosby Show character Denise Huxtable (Lisa Bonet), the Cosby Show episode \"Hillman\" was devoted to Denise's visit to the college that would become the new show's setting, and her encounters with some of the new show's supporting characters. A 2018 episode of ABC's 1980s-set sitcom The Goldbergs, titled \"1990-Something\", heavily featured teachers who were recurring characters on the series and served as the backdoor pilot to Schooled, which debuted in early 2019.[11]
Similarly, the backdoor pilot for the television sitcom Empty Nest was an episode of The Golden Girls, which relegated that show's regular stars to supporting characters in an episode devoted to new characters who were introduced as their neighbors. Feedback on the episode resulted in Empty Nest being extensively reworked before its debut; while the concept and the \"living next to the Golden Girls\" setting was retained, the series ended up featuring different characters from those in the original Golden Girls episode.
The series finale of One Day at a Time in May 1984 served as a backdoor pilot to a spin-off featuring Pat Harrington, Jr.'s character of Dwayne Schneider in a new setting, but CBS ultimately passed on the potential series.[19] Similarly, the 1988 two-part series finale of The Facts of Life (\"The Beginning of the End\" and \"The Beginning of the Beginning\") also served as a backdoor pilot that focused on the decision Blair Warner (Lisa Whelchel) made in using her trust fund to purchase the financially troubled Eastland Academy. Blair became headmistress and opened enrollment to male students for the first time in Eastland history. Up-and-coming actors Juliette Lewis, Mayim Bialik, Seth Green, and Meredith Scott Lynn[20] were featured as some of Eastland's new students. NBC did not pick up the new series.
The Dukes of Hazzard aired two episodes, named \"Jude Emery\" and \"Mason Dixon's Girls\", which served as a backdoor pilot complete with the Dukes cast interacting with the new characters. Ultimately, CBS passed on the two series in favor of a series starring Hazzard County deputy Enos Strate. Another example within sitcoms would be a season 2 episode of The Nanny called \"The Chatterbox\", which centered around a struggling actress who gets a job at a barbershop owned by a single father.[citation needed] 59ce067264