“Bring It On Earl”, the pilot episode of Saving Grace, written by Nancy Miller, aired last night on Showcase. Last time I posted about it, I talked about the character of Grace Hanadarko. Turns out Grace’s character is a theme tonight too.
Instead of breaking down the whole episode, I’m going to focus on […]
Showcase is airing the pilot of Saving Grace tonight, Monday August 27th at 10 p.m. If you’re in Canada and haven’t seen the show, watch it.
I’ve already written about it once, here, but I’m going to post about it again tomorrow. I’ll focus on the structure of the first act and on how some […]
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Blood Ties aired in Canada at long last: mystery, monsters and one very hot vampire who appears shirtless a lot of the time. Excellent.
Blood Price, the pilot episode written by series creator Peter Mohan, is actually two one-hour episodes even though they aired together on Monday night. I know it’s two one-hours because […]
I never imagined I would like Friday Night Lights. A show about high school football in Texas?! I resisted until January of this year and once I’d seen the pilot, written by Peter Berg, I was hooked. I proceeded to binge on the series, watching the first 10 episodes in three […]
Californication written by Tom Kapinos (who ran Dawson’s Creek in its fourth season) aired. You’ve seen it. Maybe you liked it. I know I did.
Let’s look under the hood.
It is more a typical-episode pilot than a premise pilot. Hank bumbles through what seems to be his normal routine. But it […]
Here are three more techniques to keep in mind:
Sub-plot Free First Acts
A teaser or first act of a pilot can follow a single story line without introducing a single subplot. The teaser of the CSI pilot is almost all about one of the mysteries of the week. The seven minute teaser for Burn Notice, on […]
These are the structural trends emerging from the pilots I’ve read and watched:
Open long.A lot of teases are running very long. Or scripts are eschewing teases altogether and leading off with titles followed by a long act one. Once you get the viewer tuned in, why give them a commercial and let them […]
I was excited that two recent pilots –Damages and Saving Grace — feature female anti-heroes. What’s more they’re both of a certain age.
In an era with so many not-so-nice men (House, Tony Soprano, Vic Mackey, Tommy Gavin), it’s great to finally see some shows built around edgy female characters.
I talked about Damages’ Kate Hewes […]
I finished watching Jekyll.
What can I say? The ending was a disappointment.
It starts so great. And it held me fast for four episodes.
But by episode five, I was asking “what?! what show is this?”
It’s funny. In the pilot I loved the abrupt turns that kept taking you into new territory. […]
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Apparently, some pilots got leaked to the Internet.
TV Week reports that the list includes Bionic Woman, Pushing Daisies, Reaper, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Cavemen, Chuck and Lipstick Jungle.
Add Aliens in America…
…and Cane.
I guess Californication doesn’t count because it’s not network, but it’s there too. And I suspect there may be more to come.
Good or […]
