Breaking down the pilot of REVENGE

Previous Pilot Breakdowns:
Veronica Mars
Alias
The Office
Homicide: Life on the Street
Everwood

Continuing our Pilot breakdowns, here's REVENGE, created by Mike Kelley. Original tweet thread is here.

I picked REVENGE because it's a good blend of a procedural within a serialized uber-arc. There's a pattern to every episode - Emily takes down a different person who wronged her father each week - but within a larger advancing story. As someone who rebels against that every new series needs to be "more of a 13 hour movie, really" I like a show that can tell a longer story and make its episodes feel like individual chapters. Also easier to get an audience jumping in if they miss the first few eps.

I also recently wrote a pilot that I'm loglining as "REVENGE meets 13 REASONS WHY so this feels like an easy and relevant breakdown for me to do.

The pilot starts with a trick we all hate, but we've all used. A scene set some time in the future with a dramatic climax, then a flashback so the series will now show us how we'll get here. To be honest, the first time I saw this, I felt like it was a weird start.

A gunshot on the beach. A body falls. In the distance, a Labor Day party in the Hamptons. Victoria Grayson's holding her "Fire and Ice Party" to celebrate her son Daniel's engagement to Emily Thorne. We meet Emily, establish its her party. Daniel's walking on the beach. NOLAN walks up to her: "You shouldn't be here." she says. "That makes two of us," he retorts.

We also see Victoria's daughter Charlotte, who gets her bf Declan out ont the beach. Jack is hiding right near the body, right where the two teens strip and hit the water. Emily dials a number, Jack's cell rings, alerts D & C, and when they investigate they find the body. (They REALLY want us to think it's Daniel who's dead.)

Meanwhile, Victoria is giving a very dramatic speech about how she approves of Emily. It's clear she doesn't like her much, and Emily's acting makes us think it's mutual. C's screams from the beach draw her mother who assumes the body is Daniel... and we flash 5 months back. Honestly, I think this is the kind of intro you do when you're foregrounding the mystery, but nearly ever character gets a better reintroduction later when we meet them in the past.

Demonstrating my point, Emily's buying a beachhouse. Flashback to her childhood shows us she lived her with her father. There's also a double-infinity symbol carved into the post. We see it had meaning for her and her father. This house also is within sight of Grayson Manor. Even without the flashforward, we can get from that scene that Emily's up to something, Grayson Manor is her target, and it relates to her father.

Re-introduce Victoria, checking out Emily's arrival from a distance while her husband Conrad takes care of work. Charlotte comes in and is busted by her parents for sneaking out. Dad tries to defend that "She got straight As" Victoria: "No one's accusing her of being stupid."

Now we meet the blue collar Porter boys, Jack, who's Emily's age and Declan, teenager. Ultra-rich Nolan offers to buy Jack's boat "Amanda." Jack doesn't want to sell, doesn't like Nolan much. Again, it's a lot of people to set up so you do what you can to get their POVs fast.

Case in point, we now see Victoria presiding over a meeting of all the Hamptons wives, prepping the Memorial Day party and charity auction. Exposit that her friend Lydia is going through a divorce. She owns the house that Emily's renting.

That was about 13 minutes to establish everyone. And with the execption of the opening, most of those scenes work as character beats more than plot beats. With an ensemble like this, you need to get us into the characters first - THEN set up their schemes.

Backstory time: Emily is watching old news footage of her father being convinced of funneling money to terrorists to took down a plane and killed 246 Americans. We also learn that her father worked for the Graysons. Flashback to the FBI raid of their house. Young Emily... who is called Amanda here... screams.

One person who testified against her father: Lydia. And Amanda has taken photos of Lydia having a tryst with Conrad, V's husband. Guess what, that's our ACT OUT! So we know what Emily's avenging, and we know who she's after.

Hotel room - Mid sexcapade with Lydia, Conrad has a heart attack.

Jack and Declan are working at their father's bar. A guy from the bank comes. We know that's usually not good. Charlotte and her friends come in, trying to buy drinks while underage. Declan busts them, so she offers her phone number.

Outside the hotel, Conrad is taken to an ambulance. Lydia looks concerned, and in a sneaky move, Emily runs up, "My god, is this your husband?" She offers to help. Great way to put Lydia on edge without being suspucious.

Emily sees Jack playing with his dog. Flashback reveals Jack and Emily/Amanda were friends as kids. She even recognizes the dog, Sammy. (How OLD is that dog?) Present-Jack is clearly taken with Emily, and doesn't seem to realize she's Amanda. Gotta build out the relationships

Victoria meets Conrad at the hospital. the Dr. mentions Conrad should stay away from the "spicy bisque" at the South Fork Inn. V's no idiot. She clocks why he was at the inn. Tells him "Don't do it again." ACT OUT.

I like the dynamic we see there.

ACT UP. Memorial Day party - Emily's friend and V's party planner guides Emily through the party, dropping exposition. Important stuff, Nolan's richer than all of them put together, and Daniel is a party boy who paralyzed a girl in a car crash last summer. If you're writing one of these shows, you end up writing a LOT of party scenes, so get used to juggling action here. That means giving people a lot of conflicting agendas and cross purposes. Find the conflict. Here's it's that Lydia is dodging Victoria, trying not to be exposed.

Emily is introduced to Victoria. E also says hi to Lydia, manages to say "We met yesterday at the South Fork Inn. I hope your husband's feeling better." Madeline Stowe does a FANTASTIC job of playing every emotion you expect as she processes that. And she does it silently.

That's another writing lesson. Way better than a "you fucked my husband" blow-up AND it builds tension. We KNOW Victoria isn't gonna let this slide and she seems like the type to make Lydia stew, terrified of how she'll get even.

Meanwhile, Emily "accidentally" spills a drink on Daniel to manufacture a meet-cute meeting. I should also mention that Emily VanCamp is good at playing every scene like a cat that's toying with a mouse. Really sharp at switching to dead eyes then putting the mask back on.

Victoria kicks off the art auction, saying Lydia won the art auction for her Van Gogh. That painting was a gift from Lydia. Message sent. She also announces Lydia will be selling, not renting her home. Another message sent. Stowe has a sweet/evil delivery on "I hope the Van Gogh is a constant reminder of the friendship we shared." Emily locks eyes on her with this. Daniel comes by to offer a drink, and we ACT OUT.

So Victoria is fully established as the Queen Bitch of the Hamptons, and we've seen Emily as the ruthless avenger eager to make her pay. First time I saw this I was like, "I can't wait to watch these two play chess against each other."

Conrad later tells Victoria she was cruel. Victoria says he could have had anyone, and he chose her best friend. he says he proved himself years ago. Victoria says, not without tears that she helped him destroy a man. Conrad says she did it to save herself.

Nolan/Jack subplot. Jack needs money for his father's bar, decides to sell to Nolan. Nolan goes through his pics from the party and clearly recognizes Emily.

Nolan is waitng for Emily when she comes home. "Welcome home Amanda." She manhandles him like someone trained in combat. He offers to help. She says, "You're not a part of this." He says he saw firsthand what these people did to her father. When she declines, he says "I can be just as powerful an enemy as any one of them." That was the line where I knew I liked Nolan.

Another flashback: teenage Amanda released from juvie, ten years after her father's arrest. Nolan is there to meet her, bringing the news that her dad died six years ago. he's got a box for her. Amanda thinks her father was a murderer and a liar. Nolan says he wasn't. The box has many journals and a lockbox for an account in Zurich. David invested in Nolan's company and Amanda is a 49% owner of it now. (Remember what I said about his wealth?) The journals tell the whole story of how David was framed.

David's VO says he wanted her to know the whole story and that she needs to forgive. Instead, she uses it as a roadmap for revenge. There's a picture she has of a company picnic. She makes a red X over Lydia's face.

"This is not a story about forgiveness." Emily's there to takedown EVERYONE who framed her father, especially the woman he loved who betrayed him. END PILOT with the two women staring across the beach at each other, Victoria in her house, calling someone to look into Emily Thorne.

Okay, that was harder than I expected because I forgot how plot heavy things get in there, but let's recap the important pipe that was laid:

Emily has come back to the Hamptons under an assumed identity. She's incredibly wealthy and the only person who knows the truth about her and her father is Nolan. She's there for payback and has a ton of info that can be used to destroy everyone complicit.

Victoria is the ultimate target, but she's also the queen of the Hamptons and incredibly formidable. She's not an oblvious dupe, nor is she a one-dimensional villain. This is important. Emily is cunning, almost Batman-like, and V is equally ruthless. If you're setting up an ongoing chess game between hero and villain, I don't want the villain to be some vapid dupe waiting for her turn. It also helps if she's got SOME humanity. That scene where we see regret about what they did to David is critical for this.

So what else? Well, Emily still seems to have feelings for Jack, her friend back when they were both 10 or so. Jack DEFINITELY is still somehow carrying a torch for her. Here's the angsty triangle: she loves Jack, but her mission requires wooing Daniel. Also, there's built-in conflict about how he'll react when he inevitably finds out "Amanda" has been back and lying to him the whole time. (The show later has a great story about someone assuming "Amanda's" identity coming back and falling for Jack)

Nolan is the bridge between this romance and the revenge uberplot. For whatever reason, he wants to befriend Jack. (he's Team Jemily for sure). As a tech genius, Nolan also fits the hacker every show needs. BUT I like he's not overtly geeky like every crime scene lab tech.

So we have:
Conflict: (E v V)
Romance: (J/E, E/D)
Secret Identity tension
Procedural element (weekly takedown)
Uber plot (All takedowns lead to V)
Opluant setting: Hamptons

Oh, and lets go over the mysteries the flash-forward gives us:

Who is the body on the beach?

Why is Jack near the body? Did he shoot the person?

Why are Emily and Nolan showing signs of tension?

How did Declan and Charlotte become an item? (okay, maybe we care less about that.)

If Daniel ISN'T dead, where is he?

(Like I said, I personally don't think you NEED that flash-forward. The rest of the pilot does a good job of laying all the pipe and putting balls in the air. But if you can raise questions your audience cares about, go for it.)

And I can't BELIEVE I forgot to mention this but REVENGE is a modern (very loose) adaptation of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO. You can imagine "a modern TCoMC in the Hamptons" would work as a high-concept pitch. Also, public domain, folks.

Breaking down the pilot of LIFE

Previous Pilot Breakdowns
Veronica Mars
Alias
The Office
Homicide: Life on the Street
Everwood


Fair warning before I begin LIFE, if there's a pilot live-tweet I'm gonna fuck up, it's this one. Haven't seen it since it aired. I do not remember the resolution to the mystery, so if I miss something planted deep in the pilot, forgive me. I bumped this up in rotation when I saw it was leaving Netflix.

The show opens with sort of a documentary style. It's an infodump. Charlie Crews was a cop wrongly convicted of a triple murder - his business partner and the partner's family. DNA gets him off after 10 years behind bars. You might be noticing that a lot of these pilots have infodumps. Some use VO, some use flashback. Some use both. Some drop it at the start. Others wait until the top of Act Two.

After that, we pick up 4 months after his release. Crews is a detective on his first crime scene with partner Dani Reese. Notably Reese was what broke Sarah Shahi's type-casting as "the hot girl." She's good as a hard-edged detective and meshes well with Damian Lewis.

We're at the case of the week part of the show, murdered kid. Charlie shows his unusual approach to investigation, examines a nearby dog everyone ignored, finds a bullet. And then he finds a finger.

Top of ACT ONE - Charlie's financial advisor and lawyer do a documentary talking heads. We learn that Charlie got a HUGE (undisclosed) settlement for wrongful imprisonment. After the mythos tease, we're back to the case. Talk to the kid's, John, murdered stepfather. Charlie does the quirky cop thing to intuit the guy's high. His method pisses off Reese, who already doesn't like him.

Reese: "I'm the superior detective, I'm responsible for your actions. You get jammed up for this, I get jammed up." CONFLICT. Then there's a fun bit where Charlie doesn't know how to use his cell (because they didn't have them when he was put away).

Case-of-the-Week shows often become what I call "clue trails." Risk of "And this... and this..." I'm not gonna recap every step of the investigation. Investigation takes them to the prison where the kid's father's doing time. A few throwaways from the guards taunt Charlie about his past there, suggests they don't like him much. Look for these little moments in a pilot, stuff that reminds us who characters are.

Guards provoke Crews again. He responds with some zen platitudes. It's not the sort of lead character we see in a cop show. (I mean, the quirky cop thing has been done more often lately, but Crews feels unique.)

END ACT ONE - Crews pulls over his ex-wife's new husband, hassles him.

TOP OF ACT TWO - cops interview kid, Crews and Reese clash again. He says he knows she had to fight in this job "I'm not gonna fight with you."

Kid says John was offered information from someone who said that it could get John's dad out on a technicality. Met him online, claimed to be a lawyer. "John just wanted to get his dad out of jail and now he's dead." Possibly wrongly-accused convict is an obvious, but effective way to use the case to thread out Crew's history and issues too.

And now we meet two patrolmen who knew Charlie when he was on the streets, one of them is Stark, former partner. Helped take Charlie down.

Reese checks in with her LT. Making sure Reese is "working the program." (i.e. rehab.) Lt thinks Crews is trouble. "He got screwed and he's gonna get even." Nice scene between two female cops raising the issues they have to deal with because of gender. (Before I said so, did you default to imagining the Lt. as a man?) Lt. also is looking for an excuse to get Crews bounced. Reese admits he tipped off the kid's stepdad that a search might be coming and he should flush his pot. More conflict. Lt hates Crews. AND Reese seems to show whose side she's on.

Charlie's buddy Ted handles his settlement money, ex-CEO, put away for insider trading. They met inside, helped each other, now he lives with Charlie. The documentary lets us learn all this efficiently. Neat trick, right?

ACT OUT on a case scene, interview the mother, confirm her son stole money to pay the mysterious "lawyer."

ACT UP - Charlie gets call from his lawyer telling him to come tonight.

Next, Ted shows Charlie Google. (Remember, that didn't exist when he went inside either). Charlie: "Google me." Ted: "You don't want to see that." Montage of Charlie's "criminal" history.

Charlie's lawyer bugs him to call his father about his new wedding. Charlie says that his mother is dead because "He killed her when he wouldn't let her come see me." Charlie isn't inclined to forgive him that. Also, they're definitely setting up sexual tension between Charlie and his attorney. Then, more fun with Charlie and tech, this time bewildered by the Bluetooth in his car, and the fact his phone gets pictures "It's like living in the future."

Top of the next act: Reese asks why he became a cop again, he says the whole time he was inside, he still felt like a cop. She probes if he's going after the guys who set him up. he says no.

Aw crap. I missed how their investigation led them to the guy who killed the kid. Guy lost his finger to the dog, then "I watched Arthur kill that kid." He shoots, Crews has to find a position to shoot back from. in the shooting, bullet hits a packet of coke. Gets all over Reece (remember, she's recovering). she freaks out. he helps her into the shower to wash it off. Crews later asks her what that was about. she doesn't answer. Clue trail leads us to Arthur. Arthur is brought in for questioning. They jack him up on a parole violation. ACT OUT.

NEXT ACT starts with Reese and Crews. Offers her fruit. they bicker, but it's more friendly. We start to see how this chemistry is gonna work. They get a confession out of Arthur with the threat of putting him in the prison yard with the kid's father. Tense scene as he's being led there. He confesses.

Lt comes to Reese, says dept is ready to move forward with her complaint on Crews. Reese takes it back. So she's been won over by Crews. Seemingly. It's as small journey for her in the pilot, but a necessary one.

Charlie goes home, and we see him going through confidential files. Hidden in his closet, he's got one of those HOMELAND "Wall of Crazy" things, following the trail of events that led to his conviction. Suspects on the board... including his ex-partner and his Lt.

So he lied to Reese. does that mean he doesn't trust her? And is that because he doesn't know her? or because he DOES know her and that he shouldn't trust her?

You'd think we'd go out on that scene, but we get a small bit of Ted going to drive a tractor and accidentally running over Charlie's expensive car. (Don't ask).

Okay, so let's recap mythology:
-Wrongly convicted cop.
-back on the force
-RICH
-secretly looking to figure out who framed him.
-EVERYONE's a suspect.

We actually only know bare bones here. There's a lot later eps have to flesh out in the backstory.

Relationships:
Crews/Reese - the core partnership, moves from outright tension to some measure of respect. Kinda reminds me of early Mulder and Scully, with Crews's quirky ways being like Mulder's investigative leaps.

What makes these characters different:
Crews - the zen thing, and his befuddlement of modern tech (which only goes so far.)
Reese - recovering addict. Could be a cliché, but it feels like there's a big story there.
Comic relief - Ted, former inside-trading CEO turned Crews's buddy and money manager. Gives us another world for Crews to go home to that isn't just him staring at his Wall of Crazy

Other stray tidbits that can be story fuel:
- Crews's father and the tension with him over his MUCH younger fiancé.
-Crews's history with his partner, barely touched here, but clearly will be important.
Lt's kinda pulling the "woman card" on Reese to get her on her side.

Format: We have a contained case-of-the-week, like every other procedural, but unique thanks to these characters. And presumably the long arc will advance each week, with the documentary helping exposition dumps when needed

(I legit don't remember if we ever find out who's making this documentary or how that comes into play. In the pilot, it almost feels like it could just be a storytelling device, like Modern Family's talking heads.)

Hopefully after the pilot, you either want to know who framed Charlie and why, OR you want to see him solve crimes each week. Ideally both.

Other Pilot Breakdowns:
Revenge

Breaking down the pilot of EVERWOOD

Previous Pilot Breakdowns:
Veronica Mars
Alias
The Office
Homicide: Life on the Street

Find the original twitter thread here.


NOTE: So the @CWSeed version of the EVERWOOD pilot is apparently the syndicated version. I'll be doing the Extended DVD version, which is about 5 min longer. I'm doing this one because it's my favorite Greg Berlanti pilot and I wanted to do another ensemble drama pilot.

Like a lot of pilots, EVERWOOD starts with narration, and this is accompanied with sort of a montage info-dump. The storyteller is not the lead, Dr. Andy Brown, played by Treat Williams. It's Irv, who we'll meet later.

Meet Andy Brown, who in the first scene, forgets his son's piano recital. Scene 2 shows that he's one of the best neurosurgeon in the business, and is everything you'd expect of a New York City doctor. He tells a patient, "Don't thank me now. You can thank me when I save your life."

Dr. Brown misses the recital. Police arrive at his office. We don't hear what he's told. Irv fills us in. Car accident killed his wife on her way to the recital. Andy's left alone to raise 15 year old Ephram and 9 year old Delia. We have to cover a LOT of ground, particularly in making the wife someone we care about.

Five minutes in, Andy's doing his second consult. To our surprise, he tells a patient to forget surgery, go live his life in the time he has left. "I can't save your life. At most I can prolong it... so this hospital can brag about its success rate."

Andy's made his own choice. Smash cut to "MOVING WHERE?" from Ephram. Andy's moving them to the small town of Everwood, Colorado. Ephram doesn't want to leave NYC, thinks his dad is crazy. Andy puts it to a vote and buys Delia's vote with the promise of a pony. Act one took 6:45. Ends with them moving out of their New York City home.

Act two kicks off as we arrive in Everwood. Irv drops some local exposition on us. It immediately comes off as a folksy small town in the middle of nowhere. Oh, and Andy's grown a beard.

Delia gets on the bus and we meet Irv in the flesh. A large friendly African American man.

Ephram's off to school. Andy offers to drive. E: "Appreciate the offer but it's about ten years too late." They don't get along.

Another character intro: Andy meets his neighbor Nina. She already knows who he is. See, Time Magazine wrote an article about Andy leaving medicine. He's kind of a big deal.

At school. Ephram mouths off to some would-be bullies. And IMMEDIATELY seems to catch the eye of Amy, every guy's teenage crush. She knows who he is too. They banter easily. Ephram's shown as witty and snarky. Amy invites Ephram to eat lunch sometime. Ephram clearly thinks she's into him.

Next scene: new info is that Andy's planning on opening a new general practice. There's already a doctor in town, he's informed.

Transition to Dr. Harold Abbott. A local asks him to "just check me out" here on the street for an ailment. Dr. Abbot gives a long speech about how he could misdiagnose something and expose himself to a malpractice case. It's a very efficient way of showing that Dr. Abbott has a bit of a rod up his ass. Big thing about this pilot: EVERYONE's voice is instantly clear.

Both Andy and Abbott speechify, but they do so in different ways. Looking for office space, Andy is intrigued by the abandoned and dilapidated train station. he's decided this is the perfect place. END ACT TWO

Top of Act Three: Ephram and Amy. Ephram is gassing on about manga. She's into it, cooing "Who knew comics could be so hot." Makeout music comes on. And if you haven't guessed by this point, Ephram's clearly dreaming. And when he wakes up, it's THAT kind of dream.

(This is probably what's cut on the online version, which is followed by a scene where Ephram tries to wash his sheets as Andy asks what he's doing). Andy ends with another attempt at an olive branch, "I'm making pancakes, you want some?" Ephram: "Go to hell!" Ah, fathers and sons.

Dr. Abbott confronts Andy about parking in his spot. "I'm sorry I didn't see a name on the curb." "It's implied." Abbott doesn't take kindly to another doctor in town. This whole scene is gold.

Abbott boasts his golf club belonged to Tiger Woods. Andy: "I'll have to tell him." Yep, Andy knows Tiger.

Abbott sneers that he's been there for 15 years, "Before me it was my father." Joviley, Andy inquires, "Was it your father's father before him? Because that would be cool!"

The script has to NAIL this relationship and that scene's a good microcosm. Abbot is arrogant and confrontational. Andy is breezy and friendly. Sets the tone that you can instantly build on. From here, we get to the OTHER major relationship the pilot has to nail Amy/Ephram. She asks what it's like having a doctor. Ephram's response is revealing, "He misses your birthday. You want to hate him, but he's in the paper for separating Siamese twins." So yeah, Ephram has issues.

Showing he's not entirely blinded by his crush, Ephram asks, "Why are you hanging out with me?" "You've got kind of a tragic, lonely thing going on," she deflects. As they split up, her brother (Chris Pratt!) tells her dad's not gonna like them hanging out. She blackmails him into silence.

Andy sets up the office and an older woman named Edna Harper shows up. Calls Delia "Private," she has "40 years nursing experience, includes 2 tours in 'nam." She also drops that she worked for Dr. Abbott "Senior and Junior." Again, another intro, another info dump.

Back at the house, we learn Ephram hasn't played the piano since his mother died. Andy's concerned, Ephram says "Like you ever cared if I played or not." We hit this note a lot, but it's a big one.

Andy now imagines/recalls a conversation with his wife. She suggests he grow a beard (Ah! so THAT'S why he grew a beard!) The talk is the "what would you do if I died" talk. Andy deflects. He imagines dancing with his wife, and when we pull back, we see that Delia is watching him dance alone.

ACT OUT: Dr. Brown is not well, and his daughter is concerned.

Act In: Two doctors park side by side, Andy is cheery. "My first day, you gonna wish me luck?" Harold: "If you're done blathering, one of us has patients to attend to." Andy, unfazed: "Have a nice day!" I'm SURE there's fanfic about these two. (See what I mean about what's conveyed just in dialogue? Especially in a pilot, you've got to be efficient in getting to the heart of character's attitude.)

At the office, Andy persuades the town gossip to consent to an exam, comparing her to Elizabeth Taylor (whom he has operated on. Because OF COURSE he has.) Andy's very charming, even with the name drop, but he clearly knows what he's doing. Treat hits the PERFECT genial note.

After an Irv/Delia scene that shows Irv as the wise man of the town, we're back at Andy's office. He says "I'm not charging. My services are free...I was a brain surgeon for 15 years. I have a few pennies tucked away." I liked that way of revealing Andy's not just rich, he's RICH.

Amy's brother Bright - played by CHRIS PRATT -  confronts Ephram. It's hate at first sight. Amy arrives, and Bright says, "Tell him why you're really hanging out with him." Also mentions she's got a boyfriend. This starts another mini-mystery. They fight. Lands them at the principal's office. Andy shows up, as does Bright's father... Dr. Abbott.

So the girl Ephram likes has a bf and her dad hates Ephram's dad's guts. That almost sounds like... conflict!

And now we finally get the big Ephram/Andy confrontation. Ephram calls him out on losing his mind. "I knew her! You were never around! I wish you died instaed of her!" Andy volleys right back, "I wish I did too, you little bastard!" It's a pretty raw ugly moment. Smartly, Berlanti has Ephram refuse to go in the house as ordered while Andy impotently says, "At some point you're going inside." Nina sees all this. Andy, dryly, "I run a tight ship." Look for those moments. You can't just have your characters say they hate each other. You need to have a way out of that scene.

Andy/Nina talk: he says Julia was better at parenting. Nina asks if the reason he came there has to do with Julia. "I need to prove I can be the kind of doctor and father she wanted be when she was alive." - Mission statement for the show.

Top of the next act: Harold and Andy bicker. Andy again tries so hard to be his friend. Andy also shows him up with a correct diagnosis of Nina's son's illness, which he clocked in the last scene. "Not bad for a nutbag. You should see what I can do with my hands." There's some silly banter as people show up for Andy's free services. Dr. Abbott confronts Edna, calling her "Mother." Ah, more family conflict between the Abbott and Brown clans.

We're seeing all parts of the engine that drives the series and the next scenes give us a big one. Amy gets Ephram to see her boyfriend Colin. He's in a coma after a car accident on 4th of July. He was Bright's best friend. Bright was actually in the car with him but doesn't remember anything. "Every night I pray for a miracle.. When I heard your dad was coming to town I figured if anyone could help him, it would be him." Emily VanCamp sells the HELL out of this scene. Has to make us forgive Amy's manipulation and we're totally with her.

It would have been easy to write Amy as a manipulative liar. By the end of that scene, we feel like we'd have done the same thing. What I like about this show. People are more complex than good/bad. The audience always relates to them.

The next scene was another Andy/wife convo. She tells him about passing through Everwood as a child. Says essentially, that if anything happens to her, that's where she'll be. Yes, I know it sounds SCHMALTZY, but it works, dammit.

Delia comforts her father... and piano music wafts in from the other room. Ephram is at last playing again. "I found out I'm in love with a girl who's in love with a guy in a coma." Andy and Ephram make up. Ephram doesn't make eye contact.

And we go out on Andy observing of Ephram's playing, "I forgot how good you are." "Mom used to say I had your hands."

And with Irv's final narration, we end the pilot.

So let's count the relationships that drive the series:
Andy/Ephram - conflict at the core of everything
Andy/Abbott - conflict. Also affects everything with their kids. We can see a potential domino effect for stories to exploit
Edna/Abbot - Conflict

Love triangle: Ephram/Amy/Colin. Ephram likes Amy. But the guy she loves is someone only his father can save. So if he asks his dad to help, he probably loses the girl. But how can he not ask? And hey! it's a triangle with no bad guys, just normal teens, sorta.

(Later on in the series, they make a VERY smart choice in making us like Colin. He's the most beloved guy in town, which makes the triangle even more complicated. We can't hate him.) Then we add the fact that if Andy gets involved, it's another chance for Abbott to feel like an inferior doctor. And what must it feel like to see your daughter pinning her hopes to your rival.

Bottom line: there is a LOT of pipe laid here. Two families, multiple layers of conflict both within and between the families AND the love triangle. And it has heart and characters you want to spend time with. And there's no high concept, sci-fi twist or anything.

I love this show. It's my favorite Greg Berlanti show and Ephram and Amy are some of the best teen characters to appear on TV.

Other Pilot Breakdowns:
Life
Revenge

Breaking down the first episode of HOMICIDE

Previous Pilot Breakdowns
Veronica Mars
Alias
The Office


This continues my pilot breakdown series. Go here for the original Twitter thread.


The series is based on the book HOMICIDE: A YEAR ON THE KILLING STREETS, by David Simon. Find it. Read it.

Episode "Gone for Goode" is directed by Barry Levinson, written by Paul Attanasio.

(On DVD commentaries, the writers say Tom Fontana and James Yoshimura deserve "Creator" credit, but Attanasio is the creator of record.)

First scene: Detectives Lewis and Crosetti in an alley in a bad neighborhood, looking for evidence while philosophizing about what it means to "find" things. Sets the tone. This is about the mundane part of police work. It's not car chases, gun standoffs, etc. The last line of scene is "That's the problem with this job. It's got nothign to do with life."

We see the victim's name written on The Board in red. The procedure for each victim. (Names go to black when case is closed.)

First scene of Act One, new arrival Detective Tim Bayliss arrives for his first day. Looks for Lt. Giardello. Is pointed to two guys. Bayliss assumes the white Crosstti Is LT, not the large African American man. Oops.

Bayliss: "This is where I want to be. Thinking cops. No guns."

Next we meet Bolander and Munch. Munch questions a (badly lying) suspect at the hospital. "You're saving your really good lies for some smarter cop, right? I'm just Montell Williams, you want to talk to LARRY KING!" Richard Belzer would play Munch for seven seasons here, and for 15 seasons on L&O: SVU, making him one of TV's longest characters. His sarcastic, testy persona is established from the first scene.

And we're back with Lewis and Crosetti investigating the shooting of a woman. Their talk digresses into Crosetti's obession - the Lincoln assassination and the conspiracy he believes in. Homicide does something that wasn't quote in vogue yet in network TV. It features dialogue that doesn't directly advance the story. A lot of character chit-chat, almost Tarantino-esque.

And now we're with Det. Howard, the only woman in the squad and Det. Felton. We get another interview scene that showcases the mundane nature of the job and the character interplay.

Veteran Detective Bolander busts Munch's balls about his still unsolved case. Munch: "It's been three months, nothing new. It's over." Case is a woman run over. Wasn't even ruled homicide. Munch says it's not even on the board. He shouldn't have to worry. Bolander: [She] was murdered, John. Someone has to speak for her."

That's the show, in one sentence.

Out at lunch, a bunch of the detectives bitch about their co-worker, the as-yet-unseen Pembleton. "Guy thinks he's smarter than everyone else because he listens to Emmylou Harris." Pembleton is being built up for us. Sets the stage, builds anticipation.

Pembleton doesn't have a partner, the squad tells Gee they don't like this. Gee says Felton's paired with him now so Howard can be paired with Bayliss. No one likes this much.

ACT OUT: on Munch reviewing the case file.

ACT TWO opens with Pembleton (Andre Braugher) being told he's with Felton. He's instantly cocky, points to his clearance rate. Gee says he needs to be a team player.

Frank is used to working bigger cases. He's full of himself. Felton busts his balls, "Am I really going on a routine call with Frank Pembleton... he only handles the big cases, this is just some dead guy."

Frank goes to the motor pool so they can sign out a squad car for the case. He realizes he forgot which car goes with the keys he's been holding. Rather than admit defeat or get another set, he resolves to go car-by-car until his key works.

THAT is Frank. He's tenacious and he can NEVER admit he's wrong.

Felton asks "what does this prove?" Frank says, "Just say it... I don't like being in the basement with that n****r. You resent me." Felton asks why he can't just get another key. "because what if it's the next one?"

Note the tension in every one of these pairings: Frank/Felton is racial tension and resentment of Frank's attitude. Munch/Bolander is old-pro busting the younger guy's balls. Lewis/Crosetti is less overt tension. Their case is basically leading to insurance fraud. I'm not going to recap the ins and outs of that one till later.

Felton, upon learning Tim came from the mayor's security detail, "Wagging tail of a political favor, huh?" He clearly thinks Bayliss is in over his head. "You ever see a dead guy?"

Lewis/Crosetti case: Black Widow, she's buried five husbands, collected insurance on all of them. Problem, when they go to exhume one, the wrong guy is buried there. This sets up the dark humor of them successively digging up graves, trying to find the right body. It's the sort of grimly funny thing that HLOTS was known for. It is also based on a true story, as is much of the first season's episodes.

As Munch interviews the victim's family, we get the sense that he has terrible bedside manner. ACT OUT on that.

ACT OPEN on Bayliss, Pembleton, Howard and Felton in dead man in motel room. Bayliss is trying to show off he knows crime scenes

Frank and Tim left alone. Frank thinks it's murder. Tim doesn't. Frank points out the old guy's car is missing. We find out the older guy has been seen with some younger guys.

A subplot in this ep is about Howard's perfect clearance rate. The suspect she's been looking for disappeared... until he walks right into the squadroom. He folds within seconds in interrogation. Howard's rate is secure. Subverts the trope about how every police interrogation is a chess match. Sometimes the suspects are dumb, with terrible attempts at deception.

Munch goes through suspect mugshots, and he finds something. They're looking for a blonde guy. Funny thing, a suspect picked up two weeks later on another case has black hair.. and blonde eyebrows. They confront the guy, and his answer to everything is "I was drinking." We see Munch turn the victim's name from red to black. We know what that means.

ACT OUT on Bolander meeting the new, attractive medical examiner.

ACT UP on detectives drinking, with Crosetti writing up a complaint against Lewis for calling him a "salami brain." Nice touch, Howard proofreads the memo.

A lot of good Munch lines here, btw. He's the guy interjecting sarcastic jokes whether or not they're appreciated. The other detectives mostly ignore him.

Suspect picked up in Frank and Tim's case and then we get the greatest scene of the pilot, as Frank explains how an interrogation is done.

"A guilty man left in the box alone, falls asleep.. uncooperative, too cooperative, blinks, stares."

He describes what he is about to do as "an act of salesmanship... what I am selling is a long prison term to a client who has no genuine use for the product." I WISH this scene was still on YouTube, because no recap really does it justice. Line by line, this scene is brilliant.

Frank makes the guy read and initial a waiver of his rights. He's making the process mundane, making HIM a part of the process. Guy suggests maybe he wants a lawyer. Frank says if that happens, he has to write it up how it looks - first degree murder.

It's a trap. "This room is like a wall, and at the top of that wall is a small open window. A way out. Son I am that window." Frank gets him to keep talking, putting himself at the scene, waiving his right to an attorney. With that out of the way, Frank catches him in a big lie, and the guy folds like a cheap suit.

Tim confronts Frank, saying he tricked that guy into not getting a lawyer. Frank says "Do you believe he did it?" Frank rips Tim a new one. Tim wonders what an innocent man would do with the same chance. That is always the tension of Box scenes. When Frank pushes it, can he break an innocent man? (Spoiler: he can.)

Now we have Munch, Lewis, and Crosetti in a scene of them that has nothing to do with their cases. They hit on a moneymaking idea, Mail order adult diapers. Scene's a good showcase of how their minds work.

Phone rings at the squad. Howard asks Tim, "you ready?" He answers, which makes him the primary.

Final scene: Tim at the crime scene. A young girl has been murdered. He raises his badge. "Homicide." FADE OUT. End of episode.

So we introduce the ensemble. Tim is used as "new guy" and an audience explainer, both at the start and both as innocent eyes for Frank's envelope pushing behavior in the box. And a lot of little mini-arcs here, showing us how Munch and Bolander relate, how Crosetti and Lewis get on each other's nerves, how Howard and Felton have a pretty easy partnership.

It's not a BIG pilot. It takes a genre of show and refreshes it by amping up the character stuff. None of the cases are teh epic brain teasers you find on most CBS procedurals or L&O. It's all about what the cases mean to the people working them. It's one of my favorite pilots, with one of my favorite scenes, but it feels deceptively low-key when you watch it.

Seek it out. You can't imitate it, but you CAN study how it reveals its characters.

Other Pilot Breakdowns:
Everwood
Life
Revenge

Breaking down the pilot of THE OFFICE

Previous Pilot breakdowns:
Veronica Mars

Alias

Continuing my series of breaking down pilot episodes, today's archived tweet-thread changes things up by examining a comedy, the American version of THE OFFICE. You can find the original tweet-thread here. This pilot was written by Greg Daniels, based on the British series created by Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant.

A reason I wanted to do a pilot like THE OFFICE is the other two I did were "premise pilots." They're clearly Chapter 1s of a long story. THE OFFICE is - mostly - a story that could have happened at any point in that season. We come into an already established situation. There's definite value in writing a pilot that shows exactly what a typical episode will be, rather than just setting up the premise.

And we're off. Mockumentary concept in place from frame one. Michael's meeting with Jim about his sales. Michael's phone call establishes: he's the manager, his company sells paper products, and he's awkward. Self-consciously looks at camera.

Next, Michael addresses the camera, taking us on a tour and filling in exposition. "People say I am the best boss... You're hilarious." He has a "World's Best Boss" mug. Which he bought himself. That's a great little detail. Then we met Jim, who CLEARLY couldn't care less about his job. Michael comes in and tells an outdated joke. Jim is clearly tired of it but endures it. Dwight plays along.

Michael is caught without an agenda in meeting with his boss Jan. Problem: moments ago we've seen him tell Pam to throw it out. And Pam has to say that. In front of Jan. The reaction shots of Pam and other reacting in horror are critical. They show us the characters are as horrified by Michael as we are.

A series of shots shows the rumor about downsizing spreading through the office. Good quick way to meet everyone.

Temp Ryan arrives. Michael has a new audience for all his "Hilarious" jokes. Another reminder that EVERYTHING Michael does is playing to the camera.

Dwight bickers with Jim that some of Jim's stuff is spilling onto Dwight's desk. Instantly we know, he's THAT guy. Then we get kind of a soft break to Act One, Dwight talking head about not being scared of downsizing. Not a huge plot twist.

Michael's looks to camera are often unconscious, checking to see if they got this. Jim's are communication, "You're seeing this, right?"

Dwight says he's "Assistant Regional Manager," Michael corrects, "Assistant TO THE Regional Manager." That dynamic is fully formed in a few words.

Pam is shy, but when Michael puts her on the spot after lying to the office about downsizing, she corrects his account.

Jim knows Pam's favorite yogert. Pam is beaming when she finds out he knows that. Again, sets up THAT relationship.

Jim pranks Dwight by putting a stapler in jello. Shows Jim takes more pride in the pettiness of his pranks than his work. Also, by EATING jello when Dwight gets mad, he shows he's not above pushing buttons in a petty way. Jim always has to spike the ball.

There's a Pam/Jim exchange at the desk that's shot from a distance, implying they don't know they're being filmed at that moment. It's also we learn that Pam is engaged to Roy, who doesn't give her permission to go out for a drink with the rest of the office.

Talking head: Jim is asked if he'll be invited to the wedding. He doesn't answer. Shows the documentary crew KNOWS the story they're chasing.

Michael pulls a "prank" on Pam, accusing her of theft (of post-it notes, he eventually says) and saying he's gonna have to let her go. Michael thinks he's being funny, Pam gets upset. Michael's joke is way out of line for a boss. Even HE seems to get that when he claims Ryan was in on it. Scenes like that are an effective way of cranking up the awkwardness of what it's like to be stuck with a boss like Michael. (Been there).

Pam has another moment with Jim that's interrupted by Roy. It's worth noting who gets the most screentime with each other.

And we close the show on Jim having put Michael's mug into jello. So it's a plot-light ep. Barely an A story, but the format allows that. The story mostly is: the branch is worried about downsizing; a new office temp arrives. It's a framework to hang all the character moments. It also means these characters HAVE to come out fully formed. And Michael aside, everyone here is entirely in line with their later depictions. Michael evolves into being more of an oblivious goof than a semi-malicious one. He's got a bit more affection for these people and that makes it easier to like him. You feel sorry for the kid in school who no one wants to play with. That's Michael. You don't like the bully.

Another slight change later on is that Michael eventually seems to be playing more to the office than to the camera. It's a BIT less vain.

Ryan the temp initially appears to be the "normal" guy who will react to the insanity. Eventually they transfer that to Jim entirely. In the pilot, he's mostly there to be someone for Michael to "show off" to. Carell pretty much has to PLAY annoying without being TOO annoying to watch. That's a hard needle to thread, writing-wise. It's why the supporting cast is critical so we can imprint on people.

Similar challenge is writing a boring character who is funny to the audience. It's why Grandpa Simpson speeches were probably hard to come up with on THE SIMPSONS.

Closing thoughts: for shows like this, objectives are:

- What's the setting?
- What makes this setting relatable? (we've all had boring jobs.)
- Who is the PERFECT lead character to embody that setting, and how do you give him or her the room to demonstrate it?
- And what are the running story engines? (downsizing, Pam/Jim crush, Jim/Dwight prank war, Michael impressing Ryan.)

Other Pilot Breakdowns:
Homicide: Life on the Street
Everwood
Life
Revenge

Breaking down the pilot of VERONICA MARS

Last week I did a live-tweet of the pilot of VERONICA MARS, breaking it down in terms of what's to be learned from it in terms of writing a strong pilot and establishing a show. Soon after I was done, I had two repeated requests from followers: 1) Could I archive the live-tweet on my blog? and 2) Would I do it again?

As to the first question: see below. As to the second, I'm planning on breaking down the ALIAS pilot starting at 7:15pm Pacific time tonight. You should be able to find it streaming on Hulu. You could also purchase it on Amazon or iTunes.

Below is the transcript of my live-tweet. I made a few additions and corrections, but it's otherwise as I tweeted it. If you want to see the original thread, go here.

Part of the reason I'm doing this is I used to have good notes on this pilot for my own ref and I need to reconstruct them. I'm working on a pilot that's similar in some ways so it's helpful for me to take a peek under the hood of shows that are in the same vein.

Opening scene - noirish, seedy motel. Veronica VO. Sets the mood and the tone. Cheery voice with a cynical outlook. Calculus textbook on the seat before we see Veronica is a nice visual way to tip us off that the PI is a teen. Teaser ends with Weevil and the PCH motorcycle gang pulling up. Sets up major part of the show.

2nd scene - high school "If you go here, your parents are millionaires or they work for millionaires." Important line. Veronica gets a Save the cat moment in getting Wallace down from the flagpole.

Next scene, she nails a question in class despite being half asleep. AND she gets to interpret Poe's work as "Life's a bitch, then you die." What does all this have in common? Character.

Next scene: Veronica has a "random" locker search. She's one step ahead of the principal. More establishing bits about her relationship with faculty, and the fact she's tipped off about locker searches.

Now that we have a sense of WHO she is, we get an exposition dump. Her ex was Duncan Kane, who dumped her out of the blue. Key detail for later. The VO is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, but it's entertaining, as when she calls Logan a "psychotic jackass." It's memorable.

Another important bit: Veronica not intimidated by Weevil, even with him backed up by his biker gang. We see all this in less than 7 minutes.

I'm not gonna call out every scene, but it's worth noting we're locked in to V's POV. We don't cut away from her at any point.

Ten minutes in and we get to Veronica's father's PI office. Defense attorney Cliff stops by to drop off a cup of exposition. He mentions that the local strip club has a creative way of keeping their liquor license. Remember that for later.

And then we meet V's dad Keith, just after a meeting with Veronica's ex Duncan's mother, Celeste Kane.  

Act Out on "Dad tried to send her husband to jail for life."

Act two open - Veronica and Keith. We see their dynamic. Important to show how all your main characters relate, at least to the protag.

Case of the week (or so it seems): Veronica follows Jake Kane, Duncan's father. Celeste suspects him of cheating. Backstory about how his company employs the town and how he made half the town rich practically overnight. After that, more flashbacks, and we finally reach the real mythology...

Lily Kane - Veronica's best friend and Jake's daughter - murdered. VO tells us this was a major media case. Keith was Sheriff. Investigated Jake, So the case cost Veronica her friend, and her father his career and reputation. AND it was never solved, despite a lot of public interest and publicity.

Annnd we find out that Logan was Lily's girlfriend. Keith loses his job in the scandal, but his wife leaves. Lotta emotional stakes here.

Basically, Act Two is where Backstory kicks in the door and announces its presence. It's a lot, but it's cleaner for all the intros in Act 1.

Or to put it another way, DON'T DROWN YOUR AUDIENCE IN MYTHOLOGY TOO FAST. If the pilot opened on the Lily Kane stuff we'd be lost

"Want to know how I lost my virginity? So do I?" Well, that's a dark line. V got roofied at a party, woke up without underwear.  Lotta flashbacks, complex timeline. You know what helps? Flashback-Veronica has much longer hair. Look for the visual things like that.

Mystery tally at the end of Act Two: 

1) Who Killed Lily? 

2) Who raped Veronica? 

3) Why did Duncan dump Veronica 

Top of Act 3: Logan taunts Veronica about her mother. We learn she left 8 months ago. Also see Logan and Duncan are buds.

Now we move to Veronica's other case of the week, helping Wallace get the PCH bikers off his ass. It's a vehicle to show the V/W dynamic. Wallace pissed off the bikers by calling the cops on them for shoplifting at the store where he worked. Police took the security tape as evidence.

Another Keith/Veronica scene, shows the kinds of cases that pay the bills (bail jumpers). She brings him up to speed on Jake Kane case. As soon as Keith sees the license plate belonging to someone who was meeting with Jake Kane at a hotel, he says to stay away from the case. Another mini mystery to generate tension.

Payoff to Veronica locker search bit: she plants a bong in Logan's locker so he gets caught. It also sets up a complicated bit I'll recap quickly. Veronica basically uses the bong to set off a smoke alarm in the police evidence locker, gives her the chance to recover the security tape that the PCH gang is mad at Wallace over.

The big note: the case of the week puts all the regular relationship dynamics on display.

ACT THREE OUT - the car VM photographed meeting Jake Kane belongs to Veronica's mom. Leeanne Mars is meeting Jake? But why?

Top of Act Four - Veronica asks Keith why he wants to drop the case. He lies. Provokes bigger question for Veronica and audience - why?

Next: Flashbacks show Veronica tried to report her rape to Sheriff Lamb. He mocked her and blew her off.

There's a bit where Veronica uses the exposition Cliff dropped earlier to set up a humiliation of Lamb in court. It also involves her recovering a videotape that gets the PCH gang off the hook, and in turn gets Wallace out of the doghouse. Basically EVERY. LINE. OF DIALOGUE came together for that moment. Not one wasted scene

Next, Logan shows up for payback, smashes V's headlight. PCH gang shows u for a "She's with us" kind of moment. Humbles Logan. Weevil beats up Logan until Veronica calls him off. So now we see V & Weevil are on the same side. Kinda. Wallace gets an apology from Weevil (somewhat forced) tying that up. 

And from there we go to Veronica back at the PI office. She breaks into her dad's safe and we learn he's never stopped working the Lily Kane case AND the hotel pic V took is in the case file. So Keith never stopped working the case, but V's VO tells us her big question is "why did Dad lie to me?"

Critical point: the big mythos mystery has implications for her current relationships. It's not JUST about who killed Lily, it's about how those revelations still can upend her life after they come out. We're not tuning in just to solve the mystery, we're going to be tracking what the investigation does to the father/daughter relationship over the season. 

It's smart because it makes the show about more than just a puzzle. You need emotional stakes to hang things on so that when that mystery goes away, there's still meat on the bone.

Last scene: Veronica on stakeout again. VO declares she will solve this case and bring this family back together. it's the "I Want."

Not one wasted scene in that pilot. Everything is pushing plot, character or both. multiple subplots AND two ongoing uber-mysteries.

Major relationships established and shown: Veronica/Keith, Veronica/Wallace, Veronica/Weevil, Veronica/Logan.

relationships mostly suggested: V/Lily, V/Logan, V/Mother.

Oh! I forgot that we also set up V/Lamb and V/Cliff. both pretty important. These 45 minutes are JAMMED with character intros. And also notable, only a few of those are meeting for the first time. we're dropped into relationships that feel like they existed for years. One lesson here: KNOW YOUR CHARACTERS. 

Seriously. It helps this is all from V's POV, but the others are pretty well drawn.

Somehow the Veronica Mars pilot juggles being plot-heavy and character-heavy. Sometimes a plot procedural will go with a simpler story just to let the characters breathe while going through it. VM is like "nah," and interweaves three subplots, possibly four.

You could pull the Lily Kane murder stuff out and you'd STILL have enough story for one episode. That's how much is packed into this.


Other pilot breakdowns:
Alias
The Office
Homicide: Life on the Street
Everwood
Life
Revenge

My early thoughts on GOTHAM

I watched GOTHAM Monday night and I honestly don't have many opinions that you probably haven't heard elsewhere.  I'd been lucky enough to see a copy of the pilot script back before the show was shot and the stuff that bugged me there was pretty much the same stuff that bugged me in the produced pilot.

My biggest conceptual issue with the show is that the prequel nature of the series means that the "big draw" of the series (i.e. Batman himself) is a decade away from happening. That hasn't stopped the creators from throwing in a murderer's row of future murderers in their pre-costumed villain forms. In this episode alone, we were given teases of "Muppet Baby versions" of Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Riddler, possibly (but probably not really) The Joker, and the Penguin.  The Penguin appears to be set up for a season-long arc, so I can roll with that one. As for the rest, I think restraint probably would have gone a long way.

What I do know is that if I'm ever lucky enough to write on some sort of property that I was a huge fan of, I'm going to watch this pilot before working on it to remind myself that self-indulgent Easter Egg in-jokes are never as clever as we think they'll be.  Maybe this'll be more moderated once we're past the pilot.

Pilots are tricky beasts to judge because there are awesome pilots than can make terrible series (The Following) and there are many great shows that didn't have terrific pilots (Seinfeld, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Parks & Recreation, The Office, Seinfeld.) I usually try to consider if there's larger potential in a pilot's concept even if the execution that particular episode felt sub-par. I felt there was enough good in Gotham where I can give it a few more eps to see how some kinks are worked out.

The Good:
- Donal Logue as Bullock. It bothers me that this guy isn't a bigger star. He's done great work in both drama and comedy (The Knights of Prosperity was a very cool, funny show that no one remembers, sadly). We've seen him play sleazeballs before, but there's more than a hint of humanity in his Harvey Bullock.

- Ben McKenzie as James Gordon. I think Gary Oldman's Gordon is going to be the gold standard, but McKenzie pairs well as the straight-arrow man-of-integrity against Bullock. His hands get a little dirty in the pilot, but the actor's performance reminds us this is more due to circumstance rather than any internal corruption. It'll be interesting to see how dark Gordon will have to go by the end of this.

- John Dorman as Falcone. More please.

The Iffy:
- Jada Pinkett Smith as Fish. I'd read the script, so I knew to expect a femme fatale. I didn't expect one verging on camp in some spots. So far, it feels like a tonal imbalance with everyone else, but perhaps the universe and Pinkett Smith will moderate each other in the next few weeks.

- Robin Taylor as Cobblepot/Penguin. He's a little twitchy, and the character's nervous ticks really bug at times. He's another one that could moderate out in the first few eps.

Not a fan:
- Gordon's fiance is flat for me. She didn't strike me as interesting on the page and the actress didn't show many signs of being able to solve that problem. Also, as good as it was to see Detective Montoya here, making her an ex-lover of Gordon's fiancee is WAY too "small world syndrome" for me.

- Edward Nigma and foreshadowing in-jokes. Please let this be just a fun bit in the pilot.

I said this on Twitter and got a pretty good reaction: How cool would it have been if in the opening scene of the Wayne murders, Bruce got shot and killed too? That would have been a shocking "all bets are off" moment. Plus, it would have instantly established this as it's own timeline. It's Gotham City without Batman coming to save it. Ever. I think I'd prefer that to seven years of teases about if and when Bruce will finally don the cape and cowl.

I've seen The Flash pilot and I found it instantly more captivating than Gotham one. In fact, I think The Flash is probably the best comic-book pilot to-date. There's a great sense of fun throughout and it has a very appealing cast.  While I liked the Arrow pilot a few years ago, I wasn't pulled in enough to keep up with the show. I will be setting the DVR for The Flash, so make a note now to check it out.

Interview with film and TV writer Jeffrey Lieber - Part 5: Cable TV vs. Network TV

Parts 1 and 2 - How did you get an agent? and First sales and going into TV.
Part 3 - The early genesis of Lost
Part 4 - The process of developing a show

Our talk with writer Jeff Lieber (Lost, Miami Medical, Tuck Everlasting) continues.  In this segment, Jeff talks the difference between developing a show for network TV vs. cable networks.  He also discuses how he goes about developing a show that draws on real life events and people versus shows with more fantastical elements.



Find Jeff on Twitter at @JeffLieber.

Part 6 - The Bitter Questions 

Interview with film and TV writer Jeffrey Lieber - Part 4: The process of developing a show

Parts 1 and 2 - How did you get an agent? and First sales and going into TV.
Part 3 - The early genesis of Lost

In this segment, Jeff Lieber discusses the process of pitching a TV series and what he feels goes into making a successful pilot. By way of explanation, he tells us a little about his new series "Crash and Burn," coming soon to FX.


Follow Jeff on Twitter

Part 5 - Cable TV vs. Network TV
Part 6 - The Bitter Questions 

Interview with film and TV writer Jeffrey Lieber - Part 3: The early genesis of Lost

Parts 1 and 2 - How did you get an agent? and First sales and going into TV.

If you look up Jeff Lieber's credits, it will probably leap out at you that he's credited as a co-creator of Lost.  However, not only did Jeff never write for the series, he never worked with fellow co-creators J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof. So what was Jeff's role in the genesis of the series?  What did his version of the Lost pilot contain?  Click on the video for the answers.



Find Jeff on Twitter.

Part 4 - The process of developing a show
Part 5 - Cable TV vs. Network TV
Part 6 - The Bitter Questions 

Webshow: "Reader question about rewriting screenplay as a pilot"

A reader recently asked me if it was a good idea to rewrite his screenplay as a pilot.  Assuming he did this, he also wanted to know if people in the industry would be interested in reading both versions.  Here is what I had to say:

It's not easy picking a new fall TV lineup - Part II

Yesterday I discussed my favorite pilots of last season and attempted to perform a post-mortum on how many of them turned out.  Especially after watching 30 pilots, you realize how hard it is to make a great pilot.  The other thing you notice is that the vast majority of ordered pilots end up being inoffensive, neither truly terrible nor amazing.  Even if something doesn't set  you on fire, you can sometimes see the few virtues in them that would have lead an executive to roll the dice on the chances that that wet clay could be molded into a masterpiece.

But as with everything, there will be the pilots that can only leave you scratching your head, wondering what on Earth earned this thing a 13-episode order.  So without further adiou, my least favorite pilots of last season:

Beauty & The Beast 
This was pretty much the nadir of my pilot-viewing last year.  Kristin Kreuk seems like a really nice girl, but it's hard to think of a more severe case of miscasting than her role as an NYPD Detective.  Even more ridiculous was the fact that the titular "beast" probably isn't even the least attractive guy on the CW.  Critics found much to mock, teasing that it must be his tiny cosmetic scar that made him "ugly."  The creators attempt to address that criticism head on at the TCAs didn't pass the smell test.

On top of all of that was the fact that when the "Beast" gets angry, he hulks out and becomes violent.  I know I'm reading far too much into this, but in a world where teenage girls are lining up to get beaten up by Chris Brown, I found it worrysome that the subtext could be read as "Sure he gets really violent, but we love each other so it's okay!"

A season later - Shows what I know.  The show not only got picked up for a back-nine, but it's got a strong chance at a second season.  The ratings - aided likely in large part by its lead-in The Vampire Diaries - have been decent for the CW.  And just to drive a nail into the validity of my opinions, I've heard from people in a position to know that Kreuk's fans are more rabid for B&TB than they were for Smallville!  What can I say? I'm humbled.


Emily Owens, M.D.
I quite simply cannot evaluate this pilot any better than the Hollywood Reporter did, which said of the eponymous character, "Give this doctor 500 cc's of Shut Up. Please."  Go read their review. I agree with every word of it. I don't really want to get started on this one, except to note an oddity in the premise.  The basic conceit of the show is that for Emily, being a medical resident is just like being in high school.  Presumably this is to make the young viewers identify with the characters... except that on their shows with actual high schoolers, barely any time is spent in class and half the cast usually has some kind of instant-career that's way too mature for them.

A season later - Ratings sagged.  The CW ran all 13 eps, but not before canceling it.


The Neighbors
This was the critic's favorite whipping boy last season.  It wasn't the worst pilot of the year, but it was rather silly and seemed to go for the obvious jokes too often.  The pilot suggested week-after-week of stories where the aliens do something the humans find weird and the aliens explain it's a mundane part of their culture.  Honestly, it struck me after viewing this pilot that the broader tone might have been better suited to a three-camera sitcom rather than a single-cam.  (Unfortunately, the visual effects involved makes that suggestion easier said than done.)

A season later - It held on all season and it's not inconceivable that it'll get a second year.  Word is that it's improved creatively too.  I don't know if there's any critic who would have predicted that, so we're all eating crow.

Partners
I hate to say this, because there are a lot of people connected to this whose work I've enjoyed in the past, but this just didn't work on any level. Will & Grace's David Cohan and Max Mutchnick attempted another show about gay-and-straight best friends, and ended up with an assembly-line sitcom that felt like a parody of something that might have been made by rivals looking to ride the W&G wave in the late 90s. It just wasn't fun to sit through, and it didn't provide any real hook that might have compelled me to tune in on subsequent weeks. Given that there was such competition for CBS's few open slots, one wonders what the pilots they passed on looked like. Or maybe the network had just that much faith that famed director James Burrows would be able to help turn it around.

One season later: It was canceled after six episodes.

Next Caller
This is a bit of a cheat, as the pilot never made it to air and in fact had its six-episode order cut to four before production was suspended.  What was so wrong with it?  Basically it was another case where the show wasn't offering anything new.  It centered on Dane Cook as a chauvinistic radio personality whose new producer is (*gasp*) a woman who isn't gonna take his shit!  Is there sexual tension between them?  Of course there is!

I think the lesson to take from this is that the pilot didn't set up a big enough canvas to generate original stories.  Several networks ordered shows that covered familiar ground and that makes some amount of sense.  Even when an exec wants to take risks, they need to hedge their bets with safer material at the same time.  Next Caller is what happens when they play it too safe and fail to notice there's nothing to work with but a tired will-they-or-won't-they among polar opposites.

Notice anything?  In considering my most extreme reactions to what I watched, in terms of how the TV industry measures success, I was wrong at least as much as I was right.  Shows that looked certain to go the distance ended up dying on the vine, while straight-up losers endured through this season and beyond.

Now pretend that your job for the last several years required you to watch 20 pilots in the span of a few weeks and gamble the health of your network for the next year on your assessment of those pilots.  Not so easy, is it?

It's not easy having to pick a new fall lineup

Most of this season's pilots have wrapped or are in the process of wrapping, and over the next month the networks will be screening the new offerings as they prepare to build their fall line-ups.  I can't say that I envy them because experience has shown it's been harder to predict the winners.  This season alone offers ample evidence that a strong pilot isn't always evidence of a series that will take off.  Conversely, even a pilot that plays like a total loss might overcome its flaws or at least manage to find an audience.

Last season, I managed to get an early look at a vast majority of the pilots that were picked up.  The only ones I failed to screen early were a couple ABC comedies and just about all of CBS's lineup, save for Partners.  I had the advantage of seeing many of these before reviews were available, making most of my reactions untainted.  I thought I had a pretty good handle on the winners and losers - but how does my judgement look with most of the season behind us?  Let's take a look at the pilots I thought were surefire hits.

Last Resort -
I talked this one up in this early review, so there's no hiding from my own words. "It's a solid script from Shawn Ryan and Karl Gajdusek, with feature film quality production values and directing from Martin Campbell," I wrote. "The cast, headed by Andre Braugher, is solid. This is efficient storytelling at its best. When this pilot was over, I wanted to see what happened next and I couldn't wait to spend time with these characters."

A season later - I still stand by all of that.  It WAS a great pilot.  And yet the show didn't make it past its initial 13 episode order.  Some of that was the fault of a timeslot pileup. (There are few worse slots for an ABC series than Thursdays at 8pm.) Creatively the show had it's ups and downs, but the real misfire was the implausblity of our heroes not killing island kingpin Surat by the third episode.  This pilot had some strong critical support, so you can't blame that, though perhaps an audience feared the premise would be hard to sustain.  It's also possible they were leery of investing in a serialized show until the network showed more faith in it.  Either way, I backed a horse that didn't finish the race.

The Following -
I loved the pilot (also reviewed in that older post) for its dark tone and willingness to push the limits of what was on TV.  Bacon was compelling and the ending suggested creator Kevin Williamson was interested in examining what drives people to kill and to worship psychopaths.  At the time, I remember opining that while the pilot was incredibly compelling, I had my doubts about if it could appeal to a mainstream audience, considering how dark and brutal it was.

A season later - regular readers of these pages probably recall the two columns where I took The Following to task for its weaker attributes.  Creatively the show has fallen far from the heights of the pilot.  But the ratings? It premiered strong and has remained one of the few successes among new series, so much so that it's already been renewed for a second season.

The Carrie Diaries - 
I wasn't even the audience for this and I really liked this.  I hated every second of Sex & the City that I ever had to endure, but this Josh Schwartz effort was fun, charming and had a likeable heroine in AnnaSophia Raab.  Given the CW's demo, I thought this would be a slam dunk creatively and commercially.

A season later - I've not kept up with the show, so I can't speak to its quality.  However, despite a massive ad campaign, the show's ratings have underwhelmed.  Maybe all the tweens are just watching via online streaming, but the picture painted by conventional metrics suggests viewers are apathetic to the adventures of young Carrie Bradshaw.

Nashville -
Based on the promo trailers, I expected this to basically be Country Strong: The Series.  This might have been the most pleasant surprise of last pilot season.  In some 43 minutes, Callie Khouri created a whole world and a good half-dozen characters who had so much immediately depth that one might assume this episode was from a second or third season.  The only aspect of the pilot I didn't like was the political angle.  The world-building alone makes it clear why this show was ordered.

A season later - Truth be told, I still am not invested in much of the political story.  Avery's story could also disappear without making me weep.  Yet despite a few silly detours, the lead actresses have been given a lot to work with.  It helps paper over the weaker elements and allows the show to really shine when the show nails the personal drama.  Ratings may have been so-so, but it feels like there's a lot more growth potential than most of the other shows that have survived their first seasons.

Four very strong pilots, four very different (and often unexpected) results on the business side.  As an exec, I probably would have ordered all four - and yet, it appears only one of them can be counted as a true success from a ratings standpoint.  It points up the dilemma most execs face - great pilots aren't always synonymous with great series, nor does quality writing or critical praise ensures a fanbase devoted enough to make the show profitable.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about some of last season's pilots that failed to impress me and how their fortunes fared

Tuesday Talkback - which shows have improved since their pilots?

It was reported earlier today that the ABC sitcom The Neighbors has secured a full-season order.  Not to sound like a dick, but that was not a headline I expected to see after viewing the pilot earlier this year.  I also have to admit that I didn't anticipate the success of Revolution, which I had pegged as this year's The Event.

When watching a pilot critically, it's important to be able to tell the difference between a weak pilot that has immense potential for growth and a weak pilot that is so misguided that it would be nearly impossible for a series to recover.  This year, it seemed like there were a lot of shows that fell into the latter category.  I don't want to name names, but most shows of this type were easily distinguished by the unflinching and often amusingly brutal reviews that the critics posted.

I've only kept up with a few new shows this season, so I have to admit I'm curious if anyone stuck with any of the iffier shows and was rewarded with improvement.  Did The Neighbors find a way to make the premise play beyond one joke?

666 Park Avenue was another show where the pilot didn't blow me away, but of the new fall shows, it seemed to have some of the strongest potential for improvement, provided the writing staff that was hired figured out a way to develop genuine tension and build to unexpected payoffs.  There were the building blocks of a better show there, but the story presented in the pilot was a little too tepid for my tastes.

I also wrote off Guys With Kids because it too seemed to be built around a one-joke premise that was already well-worn territory years ago.  Did they find their creative groove or is it just a case of the show being placed in the right timeslot?

So let me know what shows have gotten better since their pilot, and if possible, explain why you think the changes they made facilitated this.

Interview with TV writer Liz Tigelaar, creator of "Life Unexpected" - Part 4: Selling a pilot

Part 1 - Breaking in as an assistant
Part 2 - First Staff Writer Job on "American Dreams"
Part 3 - How Do I Get an Agent?

The Liz Tigelaar interview continues!  In this segment, Liz talks about selling her first pilot Split Decision.  Unfortunately, she happened to sell it to UPN during the development season where UPN and CW merged, making for much stiffer competition in getting on the air.



Part 5 - Personal Themes in Writing
Part 6 - Genesis of "Life Unexpected"
Part 7 - First-Time Showrunner
Part 8 - Developing the second year of LUX
Part 9 - Dealing with network notes
Part 10 - Controversial LUX storylines
Part 11 - LUX lives on
Part 12 - Network overall deal, working on Once Upon a Time and Revenge
Part 13 - The Bitter Questions

Tuesday Talkback - Most anticipated shows of the new fall season

As the fall TV season gets underway, I'm curious - what new shows are you most looking forward to and why.

As we've discussed before, my favorite new drama of the fall is the fantastic Last Resort.  Nashville also has a lot of promise.  I was surprised by how much I liked the pilot, as after seeing the trailer, I had dismissed it as little more than "Country Strong: The Series."

The comedies seem to be a weaker crop, at least based on the pilots, though I really liked The Mindy Project and Go On seems to hold some promise.

What appeals to you?

Pilot sneak peeks: A great premise is no excuse to cut corners on characters

After you've been in L.A. for a few years, you come to anticipate one of the perks of working in the business: getting to see all the network pilots months before they premiere.  For some actors and writers, this is a process marked by envy.  (i.e. "How could they order this script/cast THIS actor and not order/cast mine/me?!")  I've vowed to make this tour as much of a learning experience as possible.

Because it's not unusual for pilots to be retooled, partially reshot or even recast after they're ordered, I'm not going to offer any in-depth thoughts, nor am I going to name any of the pilots that suc---  I mean, that aren't going to find themselves on my DVR this fall.

I will offer that the two efforts I've given A's to are ABC's Last Resort and FOX's The Following.  Last Resort is the story of a submarine crew that defies orders to open fire on Pakistan and then takes over a neutral island, declaring themselves a nuclear power.  It's a solid script from Shawn Ryan and Karl Gajdusek, with feature film quality production values and directing from Martin Campbell.  The cast, headed by Andre Braugher, is solid.  This is efficient storytelling at it's best.  When this pilot was over, I wanted to see what happened next and I couldn't wait to spend time with these characters.

Important lesson here: as plot driven as this first hour is, the characters all have depth and strong dynamics with each other.  All of the actors slip into these roles as if they've been inhabiting those characters for years and it's a reminder that a truly great show isn't just about a great hook or premise; it's about populating it with characters who make the most of that premise.

In other words, being plot-driven isn't an excuse to be lazy.

The Following also has a killer hook.  A notorious serial killer escapes from prison and the retired FBI Agent who brought him in many years ago is recruited as a consultant.  Before long, it's clear that the killer has help from a full cult of followers who've admired his work for years.  Kevin Williamson's script is slick, and frankly, probably more along the lines of what networks expected him to pitch back in 1997 instead of Dawson's Creek.

Williamson's ace-in-the-hole is Kevin Bacon as the lead FBI Agent.  But one doesn't get a movie star like that unless he's got a compelling character to play.  I don't want to say too much, but Bacon's character is haunted by his past mistakes and the pilot makes it clear that while the manhunt for the killer is the show's engine, it's Bacon who'll lure back an audience week-after-week.  There are probably a half-dozen shows featuring FBI agents and/or cops hunting psychopaths, but The Following is no procedural.

Most of the stronger pilots I've watched are all driven by strong characters.  No matter how high the concept, a television series needs distinct residents populating that world week after week once the initial rush of the premise wears off.  The Office thrived because of Michael Scott and his ensemble, The Vampire Diaries gets much of its dramatic tension from the Stefan/Damon dichotomy and the Stefan/Elena/Damon triangle; and where would Revenge be without the damaged Emily Thorne driving events?

When you write a movie, sometimes you can use high concept as a crutch.  TV is less forgiving, and nothing makes you more aware of the importance of strong characters than watching 15 pilots in a short span.