Jump to content

How Awful Do You Find Backdoor Pilots For TV Series?


drawkcabi

Recommended Posts

No spoilers here, but in the Stranger Things thread, season 2, episode 7 has become noteworthy as the least good episode or the only real stinker episode of the series.

I'm thinking it may in part or in full may have been created as a backdoor pilot.

Whenever I'm watching a series an a backdoor pilot episode comes on I usually cringe a little, more often than not they are pretty terrible.

Have you seen the Empty Nest one that was a Golden Girls episode? No Richard Mulligan, No Kristy McNichol, No Dinah Manoff. But instead there's Rita Moreno and the actor who played Enabran Tain on Star Trek: DS9, but it's definitely the Weston house set. And Charlie (David Leisure, Joe Isuzu) is still the neighbor!

Welcome Back Kotter: Pat Morita shows up in one episode, then all of a sudden we're following his character halfway across the country for a show called Mr. T and Tina. I know what you're thinking, A TV show with Mr. Miyagi and Mr. T., why wasn't this a hit?!!! but regardless of the title, Mr. T wasn't even in it, so it only lasted five episodes.

Then in another episode we learn Arnold Horshack's step father passed away. Not only that, he's the fifth man his mom married and she's had a different kid with four of her previous husbands. We see Arnold's home for the first time. His mom is played by Ellen Travolta (John Travolta's sister) but is she related to Vinnie Barbarino? Of course not. So as the oldest, Arnold now feels responsible for taking care of his half-siblings and mother and ends up getting a job with his rich uncle "Orshack". OK, so this is more of a pilot for a supposed spin-off because Arnold would be a main character, but it never got picked up, and it still just airs as a normal episode of Kotter. It throws the whole flow of the series off, we only see Kotter and the other sweathogs for two minutes at the begining, and then after this episode we never really get back to seeing Arnold's siblings again (I don't think), his mom shows up one or two more times, and his whole man of the house job with his uncle plotline is dropped.

Who's The Boss?: Leah Remini shows up in Connecticut, she was Samantha's best friend in Brooklyn, but they also got into trouble a lot and in this episode she gets Samantha into trouble again for ditching school and a few other things. Turns out Remini's character has no where else to go, but somehow she gets picked up by this lady who runs a house for teen models and...80's sitcom logic. Then we got 13 episodes of the teen models series. Then in another episode of Who's The Boss?, Samantha runs into Remini's character again at a gym and she's all ready a model and it's like the episode where she showed up before never happened. A case of two backdoor pilots being made and when the series went into syndication they just decided "what the hell?" and threw both in the package.

Married... With Children: Oh this got bad. One episode we have Matt LeBlanc and his dad show up at the shoe store Al works at. Al and LeBlanc's dad are old friends and Al complains that he's owed money. All doesn't show up again until the last minute of the episode where he steals their TV, no one else from Married is in it. The episode continues with LeBlanc's dad cooking up a scheme because Matt is good looking maybe he can use that to scam money off of rich women. That's the series. That's the backdoor pilot that got a green light for 13 episodes! There were two other backdoor pilots that didn't get picked up.

One was about three college radio DJ's at the college Bud Bundy goes to, one of the DJ's is played by Keri Russell. Bud wouldn't be a main character in the series though, only an occasional guest maybe. However Steve Rhodes is back (post his divorce from Marcie) and he's now the dean of the college. The other backdoor pilot I don't even remember, No Ma'am?

Star Trek (The Original Series) even had one! "Assignment Earth". The Enterprise goes back in time to investigate some strange readings. No accidental spacial anomaly, no tripping through a time machine that looks like a doorway or a hole in a rock, nope, they just go back in time to do some investigatin', totally routine. Then they intercept Gary Seven and his cat in their transporter. He's a human that was raised by aliens that was sent to Earth to "put right what once went wrong" along with Teri Garr as his assistant, a snobby computer, and a transmutating cat. The episode was all about Gary Seven and setting up his crew and his "assignment" Kirk and Spock and the rest of the Enterprise crew were pretty much just observers that sometimes got in the way.

The Office: OK, another spin-off backdoor pilot. Dwight's aunt passes away and leaves to Dwight and his siblings her land. It sets up a plot where Dwight would get closer to his brother and sister and be kind of a father figure to his nephew, but they're never seen again.

Community: Abed's father sends him to Los Angeles to check up on his brother. He has a feeling things are not going too well for him and his family and their Pakistani restaurant. When Abed gets to LA he is greeted by his cousin, his aunt and uncle's daughter, their only child. Whenever Abed meets anyone he has to mention the reason he's in LA is he's "doing a backdoor pilot episode", his cousin quickly gets exasperated by this. She takes him to their restaurant which is definitely suffering from slow business. Abed goes on and on about being in L.A. and close to Hollywood and reminds his cousin how much they loved to play filmmaker and movie director when they were kids and she dismisses that all as kids stuff and he should grow up. One regular customer the restaurant does have is this old man who comes in almost every day. Abed immediately recognizes him as one of the most famous television writer/producers in Hollywood. Turns out, the man has recently gotten a divorce from his fourth wife, a woman who was considerably younger than him. Through all his divorces he hardly has any money left. His last shot at redemption is this new show he's working on. The problem is that not only is he aged and nearly broke, he's got dementia. He also has a grandson who is the only real member of his family he feels cares about him without wanting anything. His grandson is trying to go to college to be a doctor and he wants to help him if he can. Abed's cousin immediately gets a crush on the grandson. The only problem is, she and her family is Muslim and the producer and his family is Jewish. What a coincidence the show the producer is working on is also about a relationship between a Muslim and a Jewish person. With Abed's help and encouragement, Abed's cousin rewrites the script and the producer loves it, he wants her to be a writer on his show. Her father forbids it, but she feels it could be an answer to all their problems. The grandson confides in her the secret of his grandfather's dementia and she begins to work for him as his secret ghost writer. Abed goes back to Greendale.

Ok, I made that one entirely up. But they should have done an episode like that! The latter seasons could have used a meta backdoor pilot episode.

So, to sum up, backdoor pilot episodes kind of weird me out. They jar the flow of the regular series. I think I'm watching an episode of some good ol' comfort TV series and one character goes off and meets up with all these new characters and it's all about them. Oh no! I just wanted to see a regular adventure with Kotter and the sweathogs!

Once in a while it works out. You can argue that the entire final season of The Practice or at least the last part of the final season was a backdoor pilot for Boston Legal. But for the most part, they're cringe worthy.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...