Television pilot

A television pilot is the first episode of an intended television series. It is usually longer than normal episodes (often twice the normal length) and is intended to get network programming executives, and later the public, interested in the series. However, pilots are rarely fair examples of what a "normal episode" of a series is like, since they usually set the general background and tell the origin story for the series (e.g., if the series is about two angry roommates, the pilot will probably show how they met).

Airing the pilot

Pilots usually run as the first episode of the series, unless the series ended up being so different from the pilot that it wouldn't make sense (in this case the pilot, or portions of it, is reshot or rewritten to fit the rest of the series). There have been exceptions to this rule when a network or a producer has chosen to run the pilot at a later date. Series for which this has happened include the first ' series, where the second, modified pilot ("Where No Man Has Gone Before") was aired as the third episode, and footage from the original pilot ("The Cage") was edited into newer footage to produce the two part episode "The Menagerie". The more recent television show Firefly set a particularly curious example, where the series was officially cancelled before the pilot aired as the final televised episode. Critics of the move complained that airing the pilot out of sequence made it difficult for audiences to understand what was going on; when the series was subsequently released on DVD, the pilot became the first listed episode.

Related Topics:
Where No Man Has Gone Before - The Cage - The Menagerie - Firefly

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