A "television pilot" (also known as a "pilot", "pilot episode", and "series premiere") is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an intended television series. It is an early step in the development of a television series, much like pilot lights or pilot studies serve as precursors to the start of larger activity, or pilot holes prepare the way for larger holes. Television networks use pilots to discover whether an entertaining concept can be successfully realized. After seeing this sample of the proposed product, networks will then determine whether the expense of additional episodes is justified. They are best thought of as prototypes 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 succeed to the series stage,[1] although the figure may be even lower.[2]
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In American television, each summer each of the four large broadcast networks—ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC—receives about 500 brief elevator pitches for new shows from writers and producers. Each network during the fall requests scripts for about 70 pitches and, in January, orders about 20 pilot episodes.[3] Many actors from New York and abroad come to Los Angeles to be cast in pilots during spring.[4] Depending on the ratings of its current shows each network announces orders for about four to eight new shows based on the pilots at the annual upfronts, but only one to two shows survive for more than one season.[3]
A pilot episode is generally the first episode of a new show, shown to the heads of the studio to whom it is marketed.
The television industry uses the term differently from most viewers. Viewers frequently consider the first episode available for their viewing to be the pilot. They therefore assume that the first episode broadcast is also the episode that sold the series to the network. This is not always true. For instance, the episode "Invasion of the Bane" was not a pilot for The Sarah Jane Adventures because the BBC had committed to the first season before seeing any filmed content[5]—yet it is routinely referred to as a pilot.[6][7]
Sometimes, too, viewers will assign the word "pilot" to a work that represented the first appearances of characters and situations later employed by a series—even if the work was not initially intended as a pilot for the series. A good example of this is "Love and the Television Set" (later retitled "Love and the Happy Days" for syndication), an episode of Love, American Style which featured a version of the Cunningham family. It was in fact a failed pilot for the proposed 1972 series, New Family in Town, not a successful pilot for 1974's Happy Days.[8] So firmly embedded is the notion of it as a Happy Days pilot, however, that even series actor Erin Moran views it as such, as well as its creator, Garry Marshall.[9]
On other occasions, the pilot is never broadcast on television at all. Viewers of Temple Houston, for example, would likely have considered "The Twisted Rope" its pilot because "The Man from Galveston" was only publicly exhibited in cinemas four months later. Even then, "The Man from Galveston" had an almost completely different cast, and its main character was renamed to avoid confusion with the then-ongoing series.
Pilots are expensive to produce and when they aren't totally sold on the idea and want to see the execution of it, a network may only order a pilot-presentation; a one-day shoot that, when edited together, gives a general idea of the look and feel of the proposed show. Presentations are usually between seven to ten minutes, however, these pilot-presentations will not be shown on the air unless more material is subsequently added to them to make them at least twenty-two minutes in length, the actual duration of a nominally "thirty minute" television program (taking into account television commercials). Occasionally, more than one pilot is commissioned for a particular proposed television series to evaluate what the show would be like with modifications. Star Trek and All in the Family are famous examples of this situation.
An example of change between the making of a pilot and the making of a series is To Tell the Truth in 1956. The original title of the pilot was Nothing But the Truth and the show was hosted by Mike Wallace. The program host was changed to Bud Collyer, and the title changed.
Pilots usually run as the first episode of the series, unless the series ended up being so different from the pilot that it wouldn't make sense (in this case the pilot (or portions of it) is often re-shot or rewritten to fit the rest of the series). The pilot for Gilligan's Island, for instance, showed the castaways becoming 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. The series began with the second produced episode, with the characters already on the island. The story from the pilot was largely reworked into a flashback episode which aired later, although with several key scenes re-shot. Even the theme song, which was originally done as a calypso number was rewritten to be completely different.
Since the mid 1990s, television producers and networks have increasingly used presentation tapes called "demos" in lieu of full-length pilots.[2] These demos tend to be substantially shorter than a standard episode, and make limited use of original sets and post-production elements. The idea is merely to showcase the cast and the writing. These types of pilots are rarely broadcast, if ever, although the material is sometimes partially retrofitted onto a future episode of the resulting series.
Some series sold using demos:
A backdoor pilot is defined by Variety as a "pilot episode filmed as a standalone movie so it can be broadcast if not picked up as a series".[10] It is distinguished from a simple pilot in that it has a dual purpose. It has an inherent commercial value of its own while also being "proof of concept for the show, that's made to see if the series is worth bankrolling".[11] This definition also includes episodes of one show introducing a spin-off. A typical unsuccessful example was the final episode of One Day at a Time in May 1984, which was supposed to serve as a spin-off featuring Pat Harrington, Jr.'s "Dwayne Schneider" character in a new setting. The network ultimately passed on the potential series.
A historically important venue for backdoor pilots has been the anthology series. They have variously been used as a place to show work still being actively considered for pickup, and as a venue for completed work already rejected by the network. With the decline of anthology series, backdoor pilots have increasingly been seen as episodes of existing series,[12] one-off television movies, and mini-series. As backdoor pilots have either failed to sell or are pending the outcome of the broadcast, networks will not advertise them as pilots. It is thus often unclear to initial viewers of backdoor pilots that they are seeing a pilot of any kind, unless they have been privy to knowledgeable media coverage of the piece.
While, as listed above, there are many telemovies or episodes within series intended as pilots, there are often telemovies or episodes within other series which are so popular that they inspire later TV series. Popular examples are The Simpsons, which started as a set of shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, South Park, which began as a duo of shorts its creators made soon after meeting in film class at the University of Colorado (a second was later made as a video Christmas card for Fox), and Family Guy, which began life as a short, entitled The Life of Larry, that Seth MacFarlane made when he was attending Rhode Island School of Design before he was commissioned to do a second short, titled Larry & Steve, and later adapting the idea into a series.
A put pilot is a pilot that the network has agreed to air. If the network does not air the pilot episode, the network will owe substantial monetary penalties to the studio. Generally, this guarantees that the pilot will be picked up by the network.[13]
Unsold television pilots are pilots developed by a company that is unable to sell it to a network for showing.