Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: (from writers) A young woman who dies and resurrects every 72 hours strives to untangle the mysteries behind her uncanny ability, her missing father, and her shadowy “benefactor;” all while evading a company bent on capturing her and trying to fake a normal life enough to blend in.
About: The last of this week’s pilot scripts. Pilot Week was held exclusively through my weekly newsletter. To make sure you’re aware of future writing contests and opportunities (like the upcoming “Scene Week”), sign up for the newsletter here.
Writers: Edward and Alvin Case
Details: 58 pages
Scriptshadow pick: Hillary Duff primed for a comeback!
Ah, here we are at the end of TV Pilot Week. Would I call this week a success? Moist soitenly. I mean I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t learned a thing or two. My ignorance definitely hurt me when choosing pilots though. The feature world is so dependent on concept that that probably influenced my choices too heavily.
The best TV, the TV that stays on for 7-8 seasons, is always TV with at least one great character. Someone dynamic or complex or ironic or contradictory or over-the-top or mysterious or all of the above. Someone like John Locke from Lost, where you just HAD to know what was going on with the guy. Or Dr. Gregory House from House M.D., where you’re not sure what the fuck the man is going to do next. I didn’t see that this week. The closest I got to a memorable character was Connor Maxworthy.
But what disappointed me just as much were the lack of any compelling relationships! Relationships are everything in TV. The disagreements people have. The secrets they’re keeping from one another. The old issues that need to be resolved. I know I’m too in love with Orange Is The New Black (the Netflix show) but it set up such great relationships.
You had Piper, who goes to jail for a crime she committed 10 years ago because she was in love with a female drug dealer who took advantage of her. And when Piper gets to jail, she learns her old girlfriend is there too. She still has unresolved feelings for her, must keep that from her fiancé to keep their relationship strong, while also needing to find out why her ex sold her out, while also trying not to act on those unresolved feelings so she doesn’t ruin her relationship! And pretty much every character in that jail has some issue going on with someone else. Every scene is entertaining because every scene is crammed with conflict. And I’m not seeing that this week. Not enough interesting relationships means not nearly enough conflict.
Ahhh, but I’m getting too negative. We haven’t reviewed Sara Lazarus yet, which hopefully will save us all. But before I get to it, I have some good news. If you feel like your pilot is a lot better than what I reviewed this week, I’ll put up a post this afternoon and let you pitch your pilots along with a link to your scripts. If a pilot gets a lot of attention, you better believe I’ll review it on the site. Expect that around 3-4pm Pacific Time. In the meantime, it’s time for Sara Lazarus. Save us, Sara!
The other day I learned that networks put a premium on the opening teaser of a pilot. And Sara Lazarus has a good one. A 21 year old woman is wheeled into the morgue, tagged and left for… well, dead obviously. After an extended moment, however, she BURSTS up, regaining her breath. She then sneaks out of the building and hops on a bus, but not before a tall man emerges from the shadows, watching her.
Sara hurries through the bus station where she locates a locker with money, a phone, and an I.D. A ringing follows. She answers and is told by a mysterious male voice to go to her new apartment, which has been paid for. She’s skeptical, but doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Once there, she learns she’s at a pseudo dorm for a nearby community college and meets college neighbors Dash and Michelle. Dash takes an immediate interest in Sara while Michelle isn’t so sure. Cat fight. Rreow!
Sara quickly enrolls herself in the college, but is more interested in the shadowy genetics company, Intergen, situated nearby. Once at school she applies for an internship there, in what we assume is an attempt to find out why she’s dying and coming back to life. As this is happening, the Tall Man gets closer and closer to finding her and, we believe, taking her away (back to the lab)?
In the meantime, Dash and Michelle debate whether it’s worth getting involved with this chick who seems to have way too many issues. But in the end, they can’t just leave her to fend for herself. So as the Tall Man closes in and the lab dudes finally find her, Sara and her new buddies will have to come up with some nifty tricks to escape it all, a task made all the more difficult by the fact Sara dies and reanimates every 72 hours.
Sara Lazarus has that “Person of Interest” quality to it. I’ve only seen that show once but, like that one, Lazarus has a nice hook to it. This woman has something that keeps killing her and bringing her back to life and we’re obviously going to want to know what that is. Throw in a shadowy corporation and you have the beginning of a TV show.
My question to the writers is, do you want this to be a SyFy show or a network show? Because right now, it feels a little too simple and by-the-numbers. I felt like I was 20 pages ahead of the story at all times. I knew the Tall Man would get closer and closer. I knew Whispery Phone Guy would say a bunch of mysterious things. I knew Dash and Michelle would eventually help Sara.
I wanted to be behind the writers, not ahead of them. So I think the first thing you want to do is look for a non-traditional spin to the idea or look to add more shocks/surprises/twists. Because while this hit the beats, it never surprised me, and this is a problem I see in the feature world as well. Writers know the writing books out there so well that they forget to add the unexpected moments and tone and voice required to make these stories unique, and not just glorified beat sheets. This is a serialized mystery. Execute it too predictably and there is no mystery.
Despite being ahead of the story, I was still confused by a few things. I couldn’t figure out where Sara was in this die-come-back-to-life process, as there were a lot of contradictory things going on. She wakes up in the morgue and seems to know exactly where to go to get her secret stuff. This tells me she’s done this before. But then she seems utterly confused by the guy on the phone and why she has a new apartment. So that tells me this is the first time she’s done this. I was constantly wondering which one it was. Had she or hadn’t she done this before?
On top of this, I was never sure what her objective in the episode was. Was it to survive? Get into Intergen? If so, didn’t she escape Intergen? Weren’t they the ones who did this to her? So why would she want to go back? It’s not like you can just waltz in there and nobody will recognize you. Which leaves me wondering what the long-term prospects of this show are. What is every episode going to be about? She’s not a detective so there isn’t going to be a new case every day. She’s not a doctor so she isn’t going to save lives every day. She’s going to community college. I’m having a hard time seeing a lot of relevant drama at community college besides which professor’s going to be the most stoned that day. I wouldn’t mind hearing what the writers’ ideas for this were in the comments so maybe I could suggest ways to make that clearer in the pilot.
Sara Lazarus is a fun concept that has potential. I’m not sure the writers have cracked it yet, though. There’s something missing here. Our main character needs something to do every episode (i.e. Sydney in Alias had missions to go on) and since we’re not seeing what that’s going to be, it’s hard to jump on board for the long run. I’m sure the commenters might have some clever suggestions for this so I’ll leave it to them.
Also, let me know what you thought of Pilot Week and if you’d like another one. And maybe some suggestion on ways to find the best pilots out there. Cause it would be cool to help someone get an actual TV show on the air. That would be awesome.
Script link: Sara Lazarus
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Remember that the reader needs to be able to envision dozens of episodes after the pilot. We have to see obvious objectives and goals and storylines for our hero. Like the other day, with Connor Maxworthy. We knew that every episode he was going to have to solve some issue at school. Or with Lost, every episode was going to be about them trying to figure out how to get off the island. The biggest problem for me with Sara Lazarus was I had no idea what the future episodes were going to be about.
