premise comedy pilot?

John said... IIRC, the premise pilot Danny Arnold did for "Bewitched" spent the first 12 minutes of the show getting the story line in place and the last 12 setting up a situation to make you sympathetic to the title characters. So the course change to what the show overall was going to be like came in the middle of the debut show and not in Episode 2, if setting up the premise had engulfed the entire 30-minute debut episode. That would seem to be the best way to go if you're trying not to disappoint your viewers in Episode 2 by pivoting in a completely different direction, though the less forced/complicated the initial premise, the easier it is to get it out of the way quickly and start focusing on developing the characters. http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-truth-about-premise-pilots.html?showComment=1348668495331#c3234060226667640645 Kirk said... The pilot for GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, which showed the Minnow taking off from Hawaii for the three hour cruise, getting caught in the storm, getting shipwrecked on the island; wasn't shown on the air, until much later on in the season in the form of a flashback. Instead, on the "first" episode, the castaways, already shipwrecked, listen to a news broadcast explaining the premise, as well as telling us the characters names, professions, etc. Pretty clever, actually. Probably the most clever that show ever got. 9/26/2012 7:35 AM http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-truth-about-premise-pilots.html?showComment=1348670114385#c7320505757964851565 http://aspiringtvwriter.blogspot.com/2008/07/series-conflicts.html