Recently, I was looking around on the HBO Max page, and while contemplating a decision before signing up, I came across HBO allows you to watch pilots of some of its shows at no cost. It’s like a career day at high school, an opportunity to take an hour to study about the ways you could use the remainder of your life.
Since the shows run for a long time, as I ended up subscribing, I have not been compelled to binge-watch the rest of every show, not even the best ones. It is worth trying it at some point.
Indeed, it’s no longer baseball’s most popular national favorite pastime. Some people watch more TV than ever before and spend the remaining half of their time discussing these shows in the office or on Twitter. We’re feeling like a tense nation waiting anxiously for television story developments to be resolved as if we’re hearing stories of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. Still, television is more realistic (kidding).
What Makes a Great TV Pilot?
Understanding a TV show pilot’s importance, purpose and purpose is the first step towards writing an effective one.
The main difference between a failing and a successful pilot is the possible outcome for the whole series. There were a few less-than-perfect pilots, but they did become wildly successful shows, i.e., Pretty Little Liars. or well-written pilots pulled after a single episode, i.e., Freaks and Geeks.
Your show won’t get to an actual pitch meeting, much less the small screen if your pilot isn’t up to par. To ease the added stress, let’s review some essential things your pilot must know.
Television pilots are the first episode of a new series. It should introduce viewers to a brand-new universe and the people residing there. In addition, it should establish the character’s relationships, desires, and needs. It should set the tone, pace and expectations of the upcoming series and, more importantly, leave viewers wanting more.
The pilot starts at Midge Maisel’s wedding, and we see the first glimpse of her natural humor in her speech. Then, four years later, the Maisel’s perfect marriage appears as strong as ever. But it’s not. Her husband has left her to his pencil-pushing assistant, and the world as she knows it breaks into disarray.
In a state of drunkenness, Midge cannot stand on stage and displays her full potential as a stand-up comic. That makes her the Midge viewers would like to tune into for each episode. At first glance, it appears that she has everything, but after the incident that led to her husband’s separation from her, her lavish lifestyle looks pretty flawed.
The real-life 1950s New York is set up immediately with authentic vintage costumes and an extravagantly detailed and elaborate set. The characters have distinct personality traits that create positive relationships and enjoyable interactions. Midge would like to fit into the mold of a nuclear family, But she has to follow her path wherever her newly discovered talent may be able to take her.
Going down with the Ship
It wasn’t always this way. I was once one of those people who would be a part of that ship. I could never leave an unsatisfactory film, was forced to read long awful books and be compelled to watch terrible shows like it was an eternity sentence.
It may be due to an obsession with completing whatever it is, even if it’s not perfect and partly driven by an unrealistic belief for the narrative to come back to its original form in the future, and also an urge to find out the events that transpired and to understand the various references to it made by your naive friends.
A few people go to the extreme and discover that they are watching shows that currently have worse than good ones. If you take off a show early, you can recall certain good times, but it becomes more difficult the longer you remain in the show.
The pilot only allows you to be in the haze of innocence as if you’ve never realized that Godfather III was ever made, or even the final two seasons of Arrested Development or The Simpsons for God knows how long. You can try that method in which you watch the initial few episodes and then go through the synopsis of what transpired at the end of the episode on Wikipedia to satisfy your desire to learn more; however, even with this clever and effective strategy, it’s not enough to give in to the urge to end the show.