The Difficulty of a Pilot Episode

As of late I have started writing the pilot episode for a web series that I created. The show is nothing special. Just two friends from high school who go to college together. But as this is my first time writing a legit show where there is development and characters and a full on story, there were some really interesting things I learned about writing a pilot episode that usually makes it the weakest of any of the episodes in a series. If I think back to some of my favorite shows, Psych, How I met your Mother, Family Guy, I find that the pilot episode is usually one of the least memorable episodes. Now that I am writing my own show I think I have figured out why it is so difficult, especially when writing a comedy.

1. Developing the Characters
In the pilot episode the author has a very limited time to portray a character and who he/she might be. You need to develop them in a way that lets the audience know who they are right out of the gate. There can't be any dillydally, you have to get right to the point. It needs to be established early on the type of person each character is.

2. The Plot
The plot is the key in any pilot episode, it has to run really smoothly, mostly because without a good plot people lose interest in your story really fast. (Apparently bad stories don't make good television).

3. It has to be funny
The biggest difficulty in writing a comedy pilot is the fact that along with having to introduce the characters, you have to make the story funny at the same time. Now that I have finished the pilot episode I cannot tell you how much easier it was to write the second episode. In the pilot the audience needs to have the characters mapped out for them. In the second episode, people already know who is who and know what each character is going to be like. This allows for a lot less build up and you can go right into the story.

4. Not everyone is going to think it is funny.
It is a very humbling experience to read your script to a room full of your friends and have some laugh their heads off, and others sit there without once smiling. This was something I had to deal with early on as I realized that in the world we live in you can never write or shoot something that is for everyone. By trying to appeal to everyone, you end up appealing to no one. The best chance you have is to hope you are really as funny as you think you are.

Well... there you go, here is a little bit of a reflection on my experience in writing a pilot episode. It was a really difficult but great learning experience because it differed so much from writing a sketch, where you can just take one funny idea and run with it.