Film and Television

I haven’t seen the new TNT series WANTED yet, but in today’s LA Times review, Paul Brownfield talks about the common practice of pilot bait-and-switch.

Television pilots, particularly the ones with action, are real productions these days, sometimes upward of $10-million affairs with chase scenes and blow-’em-ups and helicopter shots.

They’re like features — better than features since they last only an hour and there’s no mall parking. The bait and switch of these lavish premieres, of course, is that two or three episodes in, the big-name director that the producers got for the pilot is gone and the budget is pinched back,

The producers know that. The networks know that. And increasingly, the viewers know that, too. The problem is, a pilot isn’t entertainment. It isn’t the first episode of a series. What it is, first and foremost, is a sales tool aimed at the key decision makers at the network…perhaps a dozen people in a screening room.  The studio will do whatever it takes to wow them…and get on the schedule… then worry about the license fee and the deficit later.

But those worries will come… and when they do, the pilot that was filmed on location in New York moves to a warehouse in Vancouver, the big-name movie director who shot the pilot becomes a non-directing executive producer, and the stories become much smaller (and more produce-able in scope). THE FUGITIVE was one recent series that suffered from the pilot bait-and-switch and the network still couldn’t understand why viewers abandoned it. 

The question is if the producers/studios deliver a pilot that truly represents what they will actually be able to afford on a weekly episodic budget, will the network be wowed by what they see?  Probably not. So they go balls-out for the pilot — the 60-minute sales pitch — pretending that if the network likes it, they will cough up the bucks to deliver that same show every week. But both sides, buyer and seller, know that isn’t true. 

The downside is that viewers aren’t part of that tacit understanding. The audience tunes in for the pilot, which they don’t see as a sales tool. They see it as the first episode of a show they may, or may not, make time for every week. If they like the first episode, they will expect that show every week. If the viewers return and get a cheaper, less ambitious, show they will be disappointed and, in this highly competitive entertainment marketplace, won’t come back for episode three.

Gun in hand, the Mayor of Palm Springs leans forward, contempt written all over
his face.

“You need to go,” he tells the child molester in a slow drawl,
his icy stare never wavering as he takes a long drag on his cigarette.

“I ain’t going anywhere,” the molester answers, his 6-foot, 230-pound
frame quickly rising above the smaller man. “Punk.”

Without hesitation,
Mayor blasts him, blowing his kneecap clean off.

That’s a scene, as reported in today’s Desert Sun, from MAYOR OF PALM SPRINGS, a spec TV pilot being shot by Melarkie Brothers, an independant film company in the  Coachella Valley. It’s not actually about The Mayor, the politician who runs the city. It’s just one of those TV titles that’s a play on words.   

The show follows the exploits of Mayor Task, a good-guy cop turned Palm Springs
pool man who’s been recruited by a secret society to dole out justice, vigilante
style…

Wait a minute. A vigilante pool man?

The scene Sunday depicted Mayor’s first assignment for the secret society:
confronting a known child molester.

“He wants to help people, that’s the
only thing he knows and loves,” Kienzle said of his character. “But he can’t do
it, because he was fired for dropping a gun at another crime scene to help out
another cop.”

The spec pilot is being directed by Bruce Carson, who makes a living shooting second-unit stunt work for feature films.  This is the second project for Melarkie Brothers. They did a 
short called “5 Minutes Alone” about what would happen if the state allowed the victims of crime five minutes alone with the criminals who have ruined their
lives.  I’m sensing a theme here. 

The Melarkie Brothers say they’re optimistic about the prospects for “Mayor of
Palm Springs,” but if it fails they say they’re not going to give up. This is
more than a hobby, and they are more than weekend warriors, they say.

“This is just about a bunch of guys that have a passion to make and tell
stories,” Miller said.

As long as they’re stories about people beating the crap out of criminals. Here’s my advice. If they really want to capture the way of life in Palm Springs, their next vigilante hero should be in his 70s. Or 80s.  Patrick MacNee lives in Palm Springs. Maybe they can talk him into starring. He was an Avenger, after all.  They could call it  RAGING WATERS… as in Nick Waters, an angry ex- cop with dentures of doom and arthritic fists of  fury who mows down bad guys with his slow-moving Buick Regal. Just a thought.