TV Pilot Craft: Structuring a Pilot That Sells a Series
The pilot carries a heavy burden. The weight of the entire series’ future lies upon its shoulders. It acts both as a solitary episode that tells a story within itself, but also opens a door toward a larger narrative that entices the audience to stick around. That enticement is the argument the pilot is making–that this story and these characters have the juice for a hundred episodes.
Every structural decision in a pilot (what the cold open promises, what the characters’ “all is lost” moment infers about their future arcs, what the pilot answers vs. deliberately leaves open) is doing double duty: serving the hour and selling the format. Building this dual functionality into the pilot script structure acts as the pitch for the show–both to producers and studios, but also to the audience. The hook of the episode is also the hook for the entire show. The multi-plotline A/B/C braid reveals narrative depth to the world, the ensemble, and the central conflict the characters will endure. The “story engine” teases the renewable conflict that will propel the plot throughout the series. Resolutions of the pilot’s plot begets more questions than they answer. Digging into all of these beats will show how to write a pilot that sells.
The Hook
Whether it’s an hour long drama, or a 30 minute comedy, the hook carries the weight of the pilot, just as the pilot carries the weight of the series. In this increasingly fractured media environment, the opening minutes of the series might be the only slack audiences are willing to give. If their attention is not piqued, then the channel may be switched or they will continue to browse the streaming apps. The opening minutes act, not just as the hook of the episode, but as a promise of what the show will be should the audience stick around. The hook is the first glimpse of the tone, the world, the stakes, the characters, and they must be legible immediately. The hook must be compelling for the audience to stick around, but for producers and studios, the plot, the stakes, and the conflict have to be repeatable, enough to sustain a prospective multiple season series.
In the hour long drama, Breaking Bad (2008), the hook is a flash forward to the climax of the episode. Right from the jump, the first images the audience see is that of a man in his undies wearing a gas mask driving a Winnebago furiously in the desert as the passenger lies bloody and passed out, and two dead bodies roll around in the back amongst destroyed makeshift lab equipment. What the hell is going on here? The hook along with the title show a character who’s in over his head while presumably doing something nefarious–and if the title is anything to go by, something quite unlike his usual life.
The hook ends with Walt, the underpants man, recording a message for his family that elicits more questions than it answers, and then points a pistol in the direction of the police sirens he thinks must be after him. The stakes are shown to be deadly, heck, there’s already a couple dead bodies in the Winnebago. Walt, the world around him, and the looming prospect that has caused him to end up in this situation encapsulate the prospective future of the series.
In the half-hour comedy, Hacks (2021), the first images of the show depict the comedienne, Deborah Vance, in her element, playing to a sold-out audience, being attended to by stage-hands, flying across the country to do a tv spot, and returning to her giant, but empty, chateau by herself. All she has are her two dogs.
The hook shows the world Deborah inhabits in all its grandeur and vivacity. It sets up the stakes that will be driven home in the second scene that comes just after the title card, that her career has peaked, and that her current lifestyle is in danger of disappearing. The central conflict for the character becomes clear, how to sustain in a changing world as an aging star.
The A/B/C Storyline Braid
Juggling multiple plotlines serves several functions in TV pilot structure. Insofar as trying to sell a pilot, the A/B/C plot structure proves to a buyer that the writer can sustain an entire world with an ensemble, not just the protagonist. Functionally, they help the narrative flow and add thematic resonance through multiple characters’ arcs. The A plot is traditionally the main plot of the episode, with the B plot featuring different characters or different stakes whose resolutions will somehow tie in to the A plot’s resolution at the end of the episode. The C-plot may be smaller, used for comic relief or to flesh out the world. It could be a running bit–called “The Runner.” The C plot doesn’t have to be the runner, it could be the E plot. If the show calls for it, like Game of Thrones, there can be D/E/F plots too.
The multiple plotlines also offer the opportunity to cut away from the action of one plot to hold the audience in suspense. If you are using the 5 act structure–Setup, Rising Action, Midpoint, Crisis, and Resolution–each act either sets up conflict, complicates it, or resolves it for each major storyline (a runner, for instance, does not have to be in each act). Even in the streaming era, having act-outs (the action that happens right before a commercial break to keep the audience engaged to stay tuned) helps the viability of the script for prospective suitors.
In Breaking Bad, the pilot follows Walt’s journey, he’s in practically every scene. His journey, however, is broken up by theme: his mundane homelife, his struggling existence outside the home which turns into his health crisis, and his turn toward becoming a drugmaker. In future episodes, Skylar and Jesse gain POV storylines of their own, but the pilot focuses on one complicated man whose existence is fracturing at the seams. In Hacks,there’s the A plot following Deborah, and the B plot following Ava, the cancelled TV writer desperately looking for a way back into the game. The two characters live drastically different lives and the pilot shows their journeys currently overlap into a downturn, and the desperation therein forces their hands to do what neither wants to which is team up. Hacks’ pilot plot lines run parallel to each other before intersecting at the resolution.
The “Story Engine”
A series has sustaining renewable conflict that drives it forward through the seasons. The plot of the pilot exposes this larger conflict that will enshroud the character’s lives. This is the story engine. The plot of the pilot typically exposes the story engine. Whatever plot the pilot closes, it's opening a door to a much larger world.
Walt’s aggrieved mundane existence is thrown into chaos when he is diagnosed with cancer and given two years to live. It forces his hand into taking action. He resolves to make enough money for his family to live without him by any means necessary. After a drive-along with his DEA agent brother-in-law to bust a meth lab, the gears turn in Walt’s head. The story engine kicks into gear in Act 4 right before the crisis when it turns out Walt is really good at making the drug. So much so that it gets the underworld's attention leading to his “All is Lost” in the episode. He learns that he can make the money he needs for his family this way, but it also makes him enemies. Walt being a coveted meth cook and the effects that has on his humanity is what drives the rest of the story.
The story engine in Hackscomes in the resolution when Deborah and Ava sling insults at each other proving their comedic wit is in sync in spite of how different each of them are and the lives they have lived. The plot of the episode is about Deborah gaining a foothold back toward retaining her career status and Ava trying to find a job, any job. The duo teaming up resolves the pilot’s plot for each while also showing that they are going to be a sight to see as a team (they’re gonna bite each other's head off). The character dynamic is driving the series forward.
The Ending
Just as the hook has to foreshow what the entire series will be, the ending has to reveal that future explicitly. The dual functionality of pilot endings necessitate both resolution and escalation. Resolution for the plot of the episode, and escalation for the overarching plot of the series. It is the prologue to a book. Did you like what you saw? Stay tuned.
The pilot of Breaking Bad ends with Walt successfully escaping the deathly encounter with a drug dealer and eluding the cops while knowing he can cook meth that people will desperately want to get their hands on. He likes the agency that he has found in his life. The episode closes the chapter involving the local drug dealer, Jesse’s old partner, and opens the door to the criminal underworld that Walt and Jesse will face. As mentioned in the story engine section, Hack’s pilot ends the plot of the two leads trying to find an avenue back to their respective relevance and opens the door on a world of possibilities for their partnership.
Structuring the pilot demands the utmost attention because it is serving multiple functions. It can’t be just another episode of a show. It is the embodiment of what the show (the stakes, the world, the character dynamics, the conflict) will be. Producers and Execs will be looking for these aspects in every pilot they read. The pilot of Breaking Bad promises an inside look at the world of illegal drug making and what makes a normal society abiding person break. The pilot of the 30 minute comedy Hacks promises that this duo’s character dynamic has endless laughs in store while seeing what female creatives have to deal with to make it in the entertainment industry.
Figuring out the story engine and the renewable conflict of any pilot is imperative. What is this one episode promising the audience should they keep watching? What is it promising to prospective producers to see a repeatable formula? If the story engine can’t be defined within your pilot, that’s the first thing to target during a rewrite or constructing the outline as it is the argument for the show to exist in the first place.
