SudenKapala wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 6:27 pmHaving rewatched the pilot a few days ago -- and not really changing my opinion all that much -- I've landed at 5 or 6 now. And right from the start of ep 2, it got off the ground for me! And now I see, or at least feel myself, where the above ideas are coming from.
Really enjoying it.
Forgive me as I ruminate on pilots for a second. I didn't mean for this response to go this long. Please, tell me if you guys disagree. Intelligent people can disagree.
It's funny how hard it is to make a good pilot. You have to introduce the main characters, establish the interpersonal relationships that will be key to the workings of the show, have a plot that's not too big as to take up all of the time, but not so simple as to feel like the characters are going to sleepwalk through the episodes, and, in modern TV, usually include the beginnings of an ongoing mystery that will unfold through the season or series. Dialogue has to be snappy but true to the characters to get this all done. In a half hour (22 minutes on broadcast), it's even harder to do that. Something is usually put on the back burner and just hinted at and that always drives fans crazy.
For example, I've been watching WandaVision and I told my wife the first three episodes should have dropped the first week. The common complaint I've heard is that if the show were not a Marvel show where we already knew the characters and had a feeling what was going on, would we have watched more than the pilot? Spoilers:
Probably not. It's a slow burn.
I also recently saw the pilot for Mr. Mayor with Ted Danson on Peacock. It seemed fine. I like the actors involved. I wasn't hooked. And despite my general rule to give a show a few episodes, I haven't gotten back to it after a few weeks. Still, I think I will as I have the feeling that an unfortunate amount of real estate was needed to establish the backstory of the two main characters and later episodes are going to be more formulaic. I might even get hooked.
The big takeaway, pilots are hard.
What Trek show had the best pilot? For my money, DS9. (They also had an hour and a half runtime.) Voyager didn't get into the weeds of how the ship worked for the next few weeks. TNG kind of let characters wait to take their place in the spotlight. Enterprise wasn't bad as far as pilots go. "The Cage" is actually an amazing pilot. If the first two episodes of Discovery were their pilot (released together and comparable to other Trek pilots in length), I would argue they did a good job, even if the potential was not fully paid off. Honestly, to feel like an honest to god pilot, I think you'd have to include the third episode, which I think is kind of my point.
I made a dismissive comment about The Orville earlier (I don't care or mind if anyone else likes it; I just don't want anyone to think I'm insulting them), but I could still argue that it has a great pilot. It sets up the characters (I hate them), it sets up the villain (which I think are cartoonish), and it shows how a general episode will go (the day is saved not because of the crew, but because of a deus ex machina - this episode isn't the best example of this in the first season, but it still is one). People liking this episode know exactly what they're getting from here on out. People who didn't like it know that too and can tune out. I still watched the first season, because people told me how great it was, but the only episode I liked was the last one, which still had a deus ex machina ending, but made sense given the message that reason outlasts irrationality, the first true Trek-like message in the series. (I wish luck to those that have enjoyed it. I did promise someone to watch season 2 some time - just like my general rule to give a show a few episodes, I also understand a series can grow into itself - but I'm in no rush.)