Vincent Terrace - Encyclopedia of Television Pilots

On November 27, 1937, the NBC network presented American televisions first pilot film (then referred to as experimental programs), called Sherlock Holmes in an adaptation of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story, The Three Garridebs. The experiment never went beyond one live telecast of this potential television series but it did set the pace for additional test programs as NBC, CBS, and DuMont (the ABC television network did not yet exist) sought to find regular programs for their audiences in the fledgling U.S. television industry.

This book is a comprehensive history of such American television fare, single-episode broadcasts of programs that were produced for potential series that never actually went into production.

A pilot film is often produced like an episode of a regular television series, though its purpose is as a test for the shows potential as an ongoing program. Pilot films can range in length from the normal 30- and 60-minute versions to expanded productions that air as TV movies. In many instances, after the pilot airs, changes are made to fine tune them into what producers feel will better suit their audiences (examples of these include The A-Team , wherein Dirk Benedict replaced Tim Dunigan as Templeton Peck; or Meg Foster first replacing Loretta Swit as Christine Cagney on Cagney and Lacey ).

In many instances, the pilot episode for a series is telecast as the series first aired episode, though there are exceptions to this rule. Some pilots air months before the actual series (as did The Incredible Hulk and Wonder Woman , for example) starts its run while others are incorporated into the show they become (the Vexed episode of Lost Girl , for instance, ran as the eighth episode of the series). There are also backdoor pilots, which are broadcast as a single episode of a regular series but have very little to do with the overall cast and plot of that series (examples include the Kitty episode of C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation that became the series C.S.I.: Cyber ; or the I Am the Apocalypse installment of Chicago Fire that led to the series Chicago Med ).

Another category concerns pilot films that were televised as part of an anthology series. Normally this category of pilots will not include what would become the series theme song, as the episode is only a test to gather audience reaction after it airs. Examples of these include New Girl in His Life (the pilot for Bachelor Father that ran on General Electric Theater ) and Dragnet (which ran on Chesterfield Sound Off Time ).

While pilots like those discussed above do air, there are also many that are produced and never air. A comprehensive listing of such programs can be found in this books companion volume, The Encyclopedia of Unaired Pilots, 19452018 , which also chronicles the many unaired pilots for aired series, including those from All in the Family , The Big Bang Theory , Buffy the Vampire Slayer , Dobie Gillis , Gilligans Island , The Green Hornet , Growing Pains , Hazel , The Munsters , The Patty Duke Show , Perry Mason , and Threes Company . Many unaired pilots fall into a category called put pilot. In this category, a pilot is produced with the intent of it either being purchased as a series or at least being shown as a special. If a network decides not to buy the series or even telecast the pilot, they are charged a substantial penalty. It would seem logical that even if a series doesnt result, the pilot episode would be broadcast to recoup some production expenses. It doesnt always happen, though, and thus many pilots remain in the unaired category. In some rare instances, a series is sold based on an idea without producing a pilot (the 1967 series Rango falls into this category).