In order to understand television better, we have to learn how it works and how it's put together. The best place to start seems to be the pilot. The television pilot is a unique form in itself. Its closest relative is probably the film that hopes to be the first of a series, but even a film like that needs to be primarily a discrete, beginning-middle-and-end story, whereas a TV pilot is necessarily open and intriguing more than it is conclusive. It's in introduction machine, and its job is to optimize our introduction to an unfamiliar world, people we've never met, and questions and concerns we don't yet care about. It has to give us a taste of what kind of story we can expect, while also beginning a series/season-long storylines. Not easy. So I'm going to watch a bunch of pilots of various TV series - some I've seen before and some I haven't, old ones and new ones, and (hopefully) good ones and bad ones. Join me, and let's see what we can learn about the anatomy the pilot.
