Day 27 - Best Pilot Episode; Day 28 - First TV Show Obsession

[kungfuwaynewho]

I tend to be pretty lenient with pilots; I always remember that they're not just the first episode of a show, they're also a sales pitch to the network. A pilot has to do a lot: introduce the characters, the setting, the tone, the premise, the visual aesthetic; it has to hook viewers; it has to be open enough that there are possibilities for dozens and dozens of episodes to come, but it has to be closed enough that there's some specificity there; it has to ask some questions and allowed them to remain unanswered, so the show has something to continue to explore, but not so many that you don't feel like you're going anywhere.




Most pilots aren't that great, really, or the show they set out to establish isn't the one it ends up becoming. The only pilot I've ever seen that does everything a pilot should do, is totally cohesive with the rest of the series, and hits the ground running is the Arrested Development pilot. I find it even more remarkable how well this pilot does everything it does in only 22 minutes.



I was really into TV shows from pretty much day one. I rarely watched shows casually as a kid; either I made sure I watched every single episode or I didn't bother. But, as you might have guessed, it wasn't until The X-Files that I went crazy over a show. I imagine part of it was being at the right age, but it was also the first legitimately good show I watched as it was airing for the first time, and that was a big deal, too. And, of course, the shipping (from the show that brought us the term itself!). It's kind of hard to discuss obsessing over XF as a kid without mentioning that.

Comments

[un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com]

Seeing so many mentions of X-Files in your blog made start to some old episodes again. I find myself constantly squeeing about how *young* they look, and waxing nostalgic about how young I was myself - though probably not young enough to be so obsessed. My best friend still has that anecdote of calling me on a wednesday evening and me just shouting into the receiver "I'm watching X-Files!" and slamming it down again.

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

Haha, that's awesome! I remember being in 7th grade, I think, which would have made me 13, and my mom making me go to some school dance on a Friday night because she thought it was good for me to socialize (I was in a serious introverted period then), and I was SO MONUMENTALLY PISSED because there was a new X-Files on that night.

My sisters and I started a comprehensive rewatch a year or so ago, but we stalled out in season four. It was so weird, though; as obsessed as I had been, there were episodes we came across that I probably hadn't watched in ten years, and I no longer remembered what happened in them. That was just...I never would have thought something like that could happen, when I was a teenager.

[un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com]

I'm having the same experience: there are whole episodes that are a complete blank to me. I'm actually enjoying it. Although I'm also enjoying the sense of "experience": like seeing Krycek appear for the first time and thinking "oooh, look, it's ratboy! you like that arm? better enjoy it while you have it" Or, um, saying it out loud, because that's what I do. I'm a bit weird, I think.

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I realized early on that the episodes I didn't remember much of were the ones that didn't have any shippy stuff in them, so I wasn't rewatching them obsessively. Kinda sad.

What killed me in the rewatch was how many guest actors I recognized from other shows. I was like, it's Elosha! And Doc Cottle!