Television is a lot like food. Really! The packaging piques our interest by showing us what’s inside: ads, posters, etc. We might buy it because a friend told us how much they loved it, or maybe we saw it prominently featured at the front of the store (Netflix’s Top 10). We order it off a menu – think the home page of HBO Max or the evening lineup on CBS. Each restaurant’s menu is different - each platform has its own brand. And we expect to be served what we think we are buying: a bag of M&M’s should contain chocolatey candy, not potato chips; a McDonald's burger should have a beef patty in a bun with fixings, not ham and cheese on a baguette. The manufacturer or restaurant is making us a promise, and we expect it to deliver.

Your pilot serves many roles. It is a proof-of-concept, giving us compelling characters that hook the audience, a setup that shows how things begin to change for the characters, the launch of the series that begins a story the audience will come back to watch. It is also an audition, a demonstration of your skill and voice as a writer, which means telling a well-crafted story with an emotionally satisfying ending.

The Product Inside The Package

Just as important, your pilot is the product inside the package, the first taste of the show that you pitched to a buyer and will advertise to an audience. The first taste needs to be the product – the first M&M should be no less the perfect candy-coated treat than the last one in the package. The pilot must “fulfill the promise of the premise” – deliver on the promise you made to the buyer and to the audience on what they can expect if they keep watching your show episode by episode.

Fulfilling the promise of the premise means that the pilot must showcase the qualities of the series, set up what future episodes will be like in terms of format, tone, types of stories, point-of-view, pacing, etc. Each episode after the pilot is an evolving exploration of the characters, world, storylines, and themes established in the pilot. A pilot is the first episode of a series, not the -1 episode, meaning the pilot needs to be the show, not the prequel or setup for the show. There is no episode two until the pilot sells, so you can’t wait to start the show then.

You can think of it this way too: you pitch your show in a pitch session here on Stage 32, and your script gets requested. But as the reader gets into the script, they realize that all the cool stuff you pitched – the danger-filled island, the charming rogue detective, the unlikely love story – is not in the pilot itself, that the pilot is something else entirely. That’s understandably disappointing and a major reason your pitch will be passed on.

Of course, that doesn’t mean every episode of the series is predictably the same as the pilot. But when a pilot fulfills the promise of the premise, the show is fundamentally the same from the pilot to the series: same world, same series regulars, same genre, same story engines (central conflicts), same overall stakes. Each episode, then, has its own different storylines, twists, and turns.

What About A “Premise Pilot”?

While a non-premise pilot feels like an episode in medias res, with the characters already in their world encountering a new question or dilemma as the inciting incident, a premise pilot plays out the setup of the show with a new event that brings together your characters in their world. This is the inciting incident. All pilots set the stage for a story that unfolds episode to episode - the end of the pilot is the beginning of the series. But “set the stage” is very misleading!

If you think of your pilot as setting the stage, you might think that its job is mostly exposition: to get the audience up to speed on the setting, the context, or mythology, the characters’ backstories. To put the chess pieces on the board, so that in episode two, we can begin to play the game. You might then be tempted to take that inciting incident, the event that brings together your characters in their world, and put it at the very end of your pilot, in the final scene, even. But then your pilot lacks an inciting incident, and it’s not a story so much as a download of information to the audience: “Sit here quietly on the sofa while I give you an orientation so that you can start enjoying the action in episode two.” But the audience is impatient, we want our story NOW! Can I just skip to “the good part”? That inciting incident, which starts the setup, belongs in Act I of your pilot. Ask your main characters on their deathbed, “What was the moment when your life began to change?” That’s Act I.

How can you make sure your pilot fulfills the promise of the premise?

1- Service Your Genre(s)

Your pilot should establish the genre(s) of your show and then serve up the dish the audience ordered. Yes, you can have a blend of genres: a sci-fi series could also be a family drama or an action thriller, or a spoof. A medical procedural could have a major romance element. Whatever your genre, your pilot should demonstrate it. An adrenaline action show should have edge-of-your-seat action in the pilot. A big, soapy drama should have emotional twists in the pilot. A snarky comedy should have witty comebacks in the pilot. A horror series pilot should make you jump and scream. A mystery pilot should have clues and an investigation, shocking revelations, or maybe a clever solution.

Tip: Find your genre(s) and pin those words above your desk. Check them frequently – is this storyline, this scene, this season arc servicing the genre?

2- Explore Your World

Keep in mind that the audience is getting situated in your world in the pilot. They are learning the places and social spaces, and especially the “how things work.” What is allowed and what is not, and what are the consequences of transgressions? All this information should be useful for the series, because the world of the pilot should be the world of the show.

Tip: Imagine yourself on set working with set designers, costumers, etc., to build the world you describe in your pilot scenes. Do you want to tell them their hard work is going to be tossed after one episode, even just one scene? Writing words on a page makes it deceptively easy to conjure and discard the “stuff” of your show. Make yourself part of the crew.

3- Use Your Main Cast

Are you hoping phenomenal actors will portray your complex characters? They want to be in it from the start! You can add key supporting characters in later episodes, but your pilot should serve as the introduction to your main characters. The audience’s expectation is that the people they get hooked into in the pilot are the same ones they will get to follow in the series. They don’t like bait and switch. Neither do actors who think they are being handed a meaty role, only to find out they’re fired after the pilot (or Act I!). In a tight pilot, the cast is the same as the cast of the series, with as few incidental characters as possible. Other than those characters who may get killed off in the pilot (and in some cases, there is a fair body count!), everyone else should be continuing on.

Tip: Dream-cast your pilot. Of course, you don’t know which actors will actually be available, nor should you assume the hottest A-listers will want to be in your show, so don’t put your dream cast into your pitch. But it’s a lot easier to develop and write characters when you can picture them. Put those pictures above your writing desk, too. Running out of steam to find pictures of every single character – yes, even the one-line parts? You have too many characters! Now, take down the picture of every character who isn’t continuing on into the series. Disappointed? Feeling like this was a waste of time? That’s what your audience would feel, too.

4- Give Us Sizzle Reel Worthy Scenes

The types of situations in your pilot should be the finest examples of the types of situations in the series. In each episode of POKER FACE, a murder mystery is solved using the main character's ingenious ability to figure out the truth. Even though the pilot propels our main character into her journey, the pilot itself is also a murder mystery Charlie solves using her special powers of deduction, so scenes from the pilot can make up a promo for the show.

Tip: Think about the signature scenes of your series. Cut together an imaginary promo for your show. Conjure the poster. Write the awesome scene people will be posting about on social media. Are those things in your pilot? No? But there is no episode two, remember!?

5- Set The Tone

Your pilot should set the tone for the entire series – in Act I, in fact. This is another area where the audience wants to know what they are getting into, because tone is the “flavor” of the show, and besides knowing that the bag has potato chips in it, it’s not irrelevant whether they’re simple sea salt or jalapeno. In BRIDGERTON, the sumptuous style of fancy outfits at whirling balls is set up early in the pilot. The pilot of BEEF establishes the frenetic pace of the restaurant. SHOGUN offers up gasping adult content early in the pilot by showing some of the brutal elements of Japanese life in the 1600s. Narrative devices are another key part of tone. NEVER HAVE I EVER sets up our outrageous yet wise narrator’s running commentary. YELLOWJACKETS establishes storylines told in multiple timelines through flashbacks.

Tip: Come up with a list of 10 keywords that describe the unique feel of your show (There is a downloadable list of 200 words to describe tone in my tone webinar). You will need this for a pitch anyway, but also pin these up above your desk. Now look at Act I of your pilot – can you identify action or dialogue that sets the tone? At the end of Act I, does your audience know what they’re getting into?

Honor The Promise Of Entertainment

Fulfilling the promise of the premise is one of the most crucial functions of your pilot. Honor the promise of entertainment you make to your buyer and audience by delivering a pilot that is as nutritious and delicious as the pitch promised and as the series will continue to serve up. Remember, the pilot has to be the very best version of the show because it has to sell the show to buyers, and then to an audience.

I will leave you with one final tip. I get asked a lot if you should pitch your show with the series logline or the pilot logline. By now, hopefully, you can see that those should be the same. A TV logline includes something about the world of the show, the characters, and the central conflict of the series. If your pilot’s logline isn’t the same as your series logline, your pilot needs a rewrite now, before you gather a stack of passes on what otherwise might be a well-crafted script.

Does your pilot script need a rewrite? Anna’s upcoming rewriting lab starts on June 14th. Click here to learn more!

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