This is a very exciting time of the year for me.

It’s pilot season.

Right now television networks are forking over millions of dollars to film a single episode of potential TV shows in hopes of finding something decent enough to air in the fall. NBC in particular has a lot to consider. With their recent change in management, NBC is trying to move up from being the third most popular network to being the first. Quite franking NBC hasn’t been the same since Friends went off the air. Their current line-up isn’t look too well either. The Cape, Undercovers, Chase, The Event and Perfect Couples are just a couple of shows that I look forward to continuing to not watch this fall (much like the rest of America is doing now). I’m estimating that NBC is going to have somewhere between nine-to-eleven hours of television that they will need to fill come September.

Entertainment Weekly’s website recent posted a list of the 21 pilots NBC has order and will consider adding to their schedule. I, being obsessed with the inner workings of television networks, would like to offer my two cents on which pilots NBC should pick up and which ones to not even touch with a thirty-nine and a half foot poll.

Pilots NBC Should Pick Up:

Playboy (Chad Hodge). Set in the 1960s, the drama takes a look at the lives of Playboy bunnies (drama, pilot).

Yes. It’s Mad Men meets something sexy. Plus the built in controversy will bring in free publicity.

Wonder Woman (David E. Kelley). A reboot of the superhero tale that’s a serious, non-campy take on the DC Comics character (drama, pilot).

With Smallville, The Cape, and No Ordinary Family (I’m betting) likely not returning next season, we’re going to be lacking in the “superhero” department. A modern spin on Wonder Woman could potentially be really good. If it is picked up, I doubt it will long. But I would like to see them attempt it.

I Hate that I Love You (Jhoni Marchinko). Focuses on a straight couple that introduces two of its lesbian friends to one another – which results in instant attraction and a pregnancy (comedy, pilot).

If The Kids Are Alright wins best picture, expect this to get picked up.

Are you there, Vodka? It’s me, Chelsea (Chelsea Handler, Tom Werner, Dottie Dartland Zicklin, Julie Larsen). Inspired by Handler’s best-selling memoir that will focus on the lives of a group of 20-somethings who live and work together with a very outspoken young woman (comedy, pilot).

I don’t care that this sounds exactly like Sex in the City. Chelsea Handler is hilarious and I’m willing to give this show a chance solely based on that. And the fact that this pilot is based of the book finally makes this post relivent for my book blog.

Brave New World (Peter Tolan, Michael Wimer). This single-camera workplace comedy follows a group of unusual characters at Pilgrim Village, a theme park that specializes in recreations of New England in 1647 (comedy, pilot).

Let’s be honest here, NBC is looking for something to fill the The Offce shaped hole in its lineup once viewers stop watching after Steve Carell leaves at the end of this season. They failed (FAILED, I tell you) with Outsourced, so this may have a better chance. Plus, if the theme park is set in 1647 there is the possibility to introduce pirate themed story lines!

Grimm (Jim Kouf, David Greenwalt). Dark but fantastical cop drama about a world in which characters inspired by Grimm’s Fairy Tales exist (drama, pilot).

High concept, but if done right it could pay off. Although according to wikipedia, in 2005 NBC was iterested in developing a show based off the comic Fables. The rights to that comic have since been bought by ABC.

REM (Kyle Killen). A procedural hybrid which follows the simultaneous and parallel lives of a detective who can not let go of any aspect of his fractured family after a horrible car accident (drama, pilot).

It’s Inception meets the last season of LOST.

Now this list of pilots has some really horrible ideas which brings me to…

Pilots NBC Should NOT Pick Up:

Smash (Steven Spielberg, Neil Meron, Craig Zadan, Darryl Frank, Justin Falvey, Theresa Rebeck). Follows a cross-section of characters who come together for the exhilarating ride of putting on a Broadway musical (drama, pilot).

Glee was a fluke. In the past musical TV shows have failed. Do you not remember Cop Rock? Viva Laughlin? Glee is a success because of the millions of teenages who tune in to listen to badly produced versions of Top 40 hits. It’s seriously Kidz Bop: The TV Show. Smash wont work because adults wont fall for the mass marketing that Glee uses.

17th Precinct (Ron Moore). World ruled by magic, not science (drama, pilot).

Have you seen CSI? It’s basically the same thing.

Lovelives (Chris Sheridan, Peter Chernin, Katherine Pope). A sophisticated multi-camera comedy about two couples and their challenges of love and infidelity (comedy, pilot).

The word that stands out here is ‘sophisticated’ but other than that this sounds pretty generic.

Ghost Angeles (Henry Alonzo Myers, Josh Schwartz) A young woman speaks to dead people who help her (comedy, pilot).

Get it? Ghost Angeles. It’s like Los Angeles but with Ghost instead of Los. I wonder if that was intentional. (Yes, it was. And TV shows based on wordplay should never be made.)

Bent (Ted Quill). Single-camera comedy about a recently divorced Type A single mom who tries hard not to fall for the sexy surfer dude contractor she hires to re-do her kitchen (comedy, pilot).

This storyline was explored on Desperate Housewives. At best it was a B-plot.

Untitled Emily Spivey project (Emily Spivey). A cast-contingent project about parenthood through the POV of an acerbic working mom (comedy, pilot).

Emily Spivey has been a writer for SNL for the past 8 years. Unless there is something I don’t know about this pilot, it sounds no different from the rest of the Modern Family knock-offs being produced.

My Life as an Experiment (Cathy Yuspa, Josh Goldsmith, Jack Black). A single-camera comedy about a magazine writer who immerses himself and his family in his unusual situations for his stories, which always reflect back on his marriage. It’s based on the book by (former EW writer!) A.J. Jacobs. (comedy, pilot).

Another author. This will probably be picked up because it’s had Jack Black’s name attached to it. Having said that, this doesn’t sound like something people would tune in to watch. How about they just make it a reality TV show and follow A.J. Jacobs around?

Okay, I think i’m done talking about TV for now. I’d be curious to see the pilot order list for FOX, CBS, and ABC so I could pass judgement upon them as well.

Source: Paraphrasing of these pilots was taken from EW’s site. I’m not sure if they got them from press releases or what.

Thursday, February 10th, 2011 at 8:05 am.
Filed under: Television.