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You might have encountered the word pilot while bingeing tv shows but what does it really mean? In this article we aim to answer just that and what purpose they have. I can assure you that there is very seldom any aviators involved.

Pilot vs Episode #1?

Today there is a kind of conflation between the terms that have shown up. Many see pilot and directly think of it as a first episode. Many shows use it as the title of episode 1 like Bojack Horseman. This is not due to the fact that it is one but just because many people associate the term with episode 1.

There is a distinct difference between a the two however. Although they can appear to be very similar and in some cases are one and the same, the purposes behind the two things are in fact different. While the first episode usually is an introduction to a series, a pilot instead is an episode made in order to pitch a show or check viability.

A pilot is created to engage potential buyers or investors to get your project made. If you already have all the resources needed to make an independent production its sort of hard to call it a pilot. In many cases the pilot might be close to identical compared to the first episode. The Gravity Falls pilot (most pilots stated can be found on YouTube) shares many similarities to the main series opening episode but there are still many changes between the two from art style, to left out plot points, and missing characters.

Other networks/media houses like Warner Bros and Mondo Media has made initiatives to make many different pilots in an attempt to throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Instead of the creative themselves trying to sell it directly to the company, its the company who are trying to gauge engagement from the audience in case they would want to buy the full show. The most recent example of this is Cartoons Cartoons where Warner has released plenty of older unreleased animated projects.

Many different shows started like this including Adventure Time which first aired as an animated short on Nicktoons before they were bought by Cartoon Network. Here there are also plenty of differences that makes it stand apart from the show, most notably Finn’s name as he originally was called Pen.

When you make a pilot of a show it might not be as long as one episode will be of the completed show. It will probably be shorter, with cheaper animation and certain decisions are subject to change. You may not want to start on the first episode since that may not be the thing you want to focus on when pitching.

Star vs the forces of evil’s pilot is not the first analogues with the first episode but rather the 3rd episode. Although the cast hasn’t spoken about it, it’s fair to say that the decision was made due to the fact that it would be more interesting to focus on the episodic nature of the show rather than the explenation of why star was on earth. The first episode of the show is not representative of the rest since it mainly focuses on the backstory of the show and although that is interesting for a watcher or fan, it doesn’t really tell the person you are pitching to what they can expect from episode to episode.

There are also other tools you can use to sell your idea. You will in most cases need to have a pitch along with a treatment, a show bible at least when it comes to animated pilots. There are different kinds of pitches like an elevator pitch that is meant to be less than an elevator ride, while in a pitch meeting you have closer to half an hour to pitch. A show bible is a document showing of everything you would have to know about the story. You can read some show bibles here

Generally a good pilot is a video that accurately represents your vision in a way that can get it sold. If you want to tell a story about an earthworm learning circus acts the first episode might be him trying to leave his home life to finally join the circus but that might not be representative of the rest of the show where we mostly are gonna focus on him unicycling and blowing balloon animals, that’s why we instead, in the pilot, might make a showcase that is more representative of the rest of the show. maybe the worm needs to learn to juggle in that episode to give an idea of what you want to do.

All shows don’t need a pilot since they aren’t necessarily interested in selling. On this website I’ve discussed some indie projects and although some call themselves pilots something like Slumlordz don’t. I don’t know the creator behind it but I can assume that the reason is because there isn’t an attempt being made at getting this sold to a studio but instead the goal is just to make a webbased animation. It already has a home which is with its creator and calling episode 1 something else wouldn’t change that.

Pilots with problems

Many shows today that are marked pilots are not really pilots at all, or they are pilots but they aren’t treated as such by the company.

All glitch shows that has received an episode marked pilot has been greenlit for a whole series so the title feels sort of superfluous. I think to some extent that the use of such language is not because glitch wants to see if there is interest but more because they want to have an out if there is no interest. Naming an episode “number 1” implies that there will be more and naming it something else sort of lessens the blow if they for some reason can’t continue with the project.

I think glitch makes a pilot with full intents of making the whole show, otherwise they would have been much sloppier and the episodes would have been more proof of concept than full episodes. Where a normal studio would make a pilot to check if there is any interest and then rework the idea internally, Glitch don’t have to do that and it would be a ridiculous amount of work to do it for no clear benefit. The Digital Circus was already developed in house with a planned direction and that wouldn’t be changed due to audience feedback. A remake for the first episode wouldn’t accomplish anything especially given how long between episodes there are.

Imagine waiting 4 months for a new episode for it to be the same as the first with only some small changes yet completely reanimated. That would be a total waste of time. It would almost certainly kill any momentum the show had. So how could we do that while retaining the momentum?

Well you could remake the first episode later and make new episodes before that gets released but that would be kind of unwise. Imagine telling everyone that the pilot is untrue to the story, go directly to the second episode and pretend that it’s episode 1 and later on remake the first episode seasons later so it fits the current image of the show and retcon established parts of the story. Happy no one did that!

OH WAIT! That’s what Helluva Boss did!

Helluva Boss was at first released as a pilot after the initial Hazbin Hotel pilot was released and the show was sold to amazon. There are plenty of issues with the original hellaverse pilots, especially in retrospect, but unlike the Glitch pilots, these shows were meant to be sold to a major network which they were. It made sense that the episodes presented were proof of concepts rather than the actual first episodes.

The Helluva Boss pilot had no reason to be remade as it was a pilot that was clearly indicated to be a pilot. When episode 1 was released it was quickly understood that the pilot wasn’t representative of the show as a whole. There were people who were upset at this development but it was clear that the pilot wasn’t relevant to the planned story.

Despite this the Spindlehorse team decided for some reason that they should remake the pilot. It is pretty different from the original to fall in line with what the series is now. but it the biggest issue with it is that it retcons some pivotal parts of the story.

On the other hand we have Hazbin Hotel which never remade its initial pilot for the tv release, this is a lot odder as Hazbin was distributed through amazon prime as a full show. The first episode is however missing as it is stuck on YouTube although its integral to the story and a lot of information is only shown through that episode but the creatives choose and pick what is and isn’t canon.

The main issue I’m trying to present with this is the question of what the role of a pilot has. Generally they have previously been much a kin to a inhouse pitch document, something you wouldn’t expect to see. If I got my grubby mitts on a pitch document from just as an example, The Simpsons, that said that the Simpsons always had a pet hamster I can rest assured knowing that that idea was abandoned cause they clearly don’t. Now when something like that happens in a pilot there is suddenly room for doubt since its unclear what was meant to be taken as canon and not.

“Well sure they haven’t been seen with a hamster and no one has mentioned it but he appeared in the pilot introduced many things that the rest of the show don’t really care to explain outside of it” would be a stance that people could have. It causes needless confusion when you pick and choose parts.

Take for example the Homestuck pilot that was released a couple months back. I have no idea if that is meant to be a first episode or a pilot. Are they really gonna remake all that work? Is the pacing gonna be the same in the real show or is it just an oddity? Is this episode made for me to watch or for Amazon or another publisher?

There is no clear way of knowing and I, to some extent, think it can be detrimental to show if something like this is unclear. A lot of people will believe that the pilot you show is episode 1 and when it isn’t that will cause problems even if you directly state otherwise. It is valuable to be able to leave things on the cutting room floor if they aren’t deemed necessary and with public pilots that makes it harder to do.