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<\/a><\/p>\nIt’s fun to examine the pilots of shows that go on to be hits (preferably shows that last more than one season, where characters\/plots go far far from the starting point). While everyone is making the pilot, the main thrust and drive is to make it as good as possible, without knowing whether or not the show will get picked up, or be a Go. And even if you do make some more episodes, you may be canceled after only a couple, and all your work will never see the light of day. It’s the nature of the television business and it can be devastating, despite the fact that everybody knows it going in. Pilots are filled with hope, ambition, and (hopefully) purpose. <\/p>\n
\n \nIf you watch the pilot of, say, The Sopranos<\/i>, one of the most successful series in television history, a game-changing kind of success, you can see that it’s all there<\/i> in the pilot, every theme that would be developed and explored, it’s all there<\/em>. That is one HELL of an existential pilot. I re-watched it recently and it was just a reminder at how consistent that show was throughout those seasons, how much it kept its eye on the ultimate ball (which was set up in the pilot). There were members of the fan base who were in it for the violence and the boobs and were annoyed when it was an episode featuring, say, the psychiatrist or emotional angst. But watch that pilot. The pilot is telling you: Here is what we are interested in. Here is what the show will be about.<\/i> And it’s all about the therapy and it’s all about the damn ducks in the pool, and Tony’s feelings about being abandoned. It was a show about ambiguity, mortality, guilt (Catholic and otherwise), abandonment, isolation, and how Evil cloaks itself in little white lies that soon grow so all-pervasive that you are unable to look at your life in any way that is honest. The surrounding atmosphere would always be violent, due to what Tony Soprano did, and the show would delve into the killings, and the whores, and all that \u2026 but that was not what the show ULTIMATELY was about. Each season has an arc, and then within that arc there are beats, explored in each episode. Each beat is self-sustaining, but each beat also fits (somehow) into that larger seasonal arc. And then over all of THAT, is the arc of the show as a WHOLE. Something like Breaking Bad<\/i> or The Wire<\/i>, which focused on one story arc over multiple seasons, has a different format, sometimes far more intricate. Then there were shows like 24<\/i> or Lost<\/i>, both of which messed with traditional TV structures. The Sopranos<\/i>‘ “plot” has to do with the way Tony Soprano runs his business and how he deals with all of those issues. But plot is not story<\/i>. The Sopranos<\/i>‘ story is an existential psychological portrait of a man who knows he will pay for what he is done here on earth. <\/p>\n And there it is: that deep and difficult element, full-blown already, in the pilot. The similarities between the pilot and the closing episode are so evident. They were probably written (or at least sketched in) around the same time. <\/p>\n \nFrom here \u2026<\/p>\n \n \nto here \u2026<\/p>\n \n \nis not that far a jump. Watch them back to back. It’s breathtaking, how confident that pilot is, how much the show knows what it wants to be from the get-go.<\/p>\n What is also fun to look at is the acting in pilots. Acting is a treacherous business, full of uncertainty. You could put in all this work and then have it not go anywhere. But you still have to “show up” (cue Ellen Burstyn<\/a>), with all your talent intact, you have to put yourself out there, you cannot protect yourself from the ensuing “embarrassment” if the show flops, or never sees the light of day. Actors are tremendously brave. Yes, the directors take risks too but they are hidden behind the camera. Actors, their bodies, faces, hearts, everything, are out there, balls to the wall, for people to judge, belittle, dismiss. Sacrificial lambs. But that’s the job, the good actors know that, they love to work, and they would “show up” like that if it was a community production of Streetcar<\/i>. That’s how they do it, that is their relationship to their work. And with a pilot, the stakes are always super high. It’s a job, but it’s not JUST a job. <\/p>\n It’s interesting, though, because with pilots you’re not sure where you’re going to go. You can’t see all the future seasons and how your character will develop. So you have to “show up” in some authentic and three-dimensional way, to establish your character, as written in the pilot, establish it in a way that will be compelling and make audiences go, “Jeez, what’s going to happen to THAT person?” <\/p>\n \n \nI was a big fan of Thirtysomething<\/i> when it was originally on (and remain a fan today). The pilot is fascinating. It’s a bit awkward and self-conscious, and the tone is different from what would be established once they found their audience and were able to RELAX a little bit. The characters are much broader than they would be ultimately, and some of them (like Melissa) are entirely different personalities than they would end up being in the series as a whole. There’s an interesting anecdote about Melanie Mayron (who played Melissa) arguing with the creators of the show in those crucial weeks following the pilot, when they were moving on to do new episodes. <\/p>\n \n \nIn the pilot, Melissa barges into Michael and Hope’s house, wearing a red Cyndi Lauper-ish dress, babbling about working out and her dates, and she’s quirky and funny and wacky but Mayron’s point to the writers was: “Listen, the show is called THIRTYsomething<\/i>, not TWENTYsomething<\/i>.” A brilliant point from a brilliant actress and the creators heard her. They made adjustments. Melissa would come to be one of the most beloved characters on that show, but in the pilot she is a cliche. Once Thirtysomething<\/i> had their audience, the sense of relaxation is almost palpable, you can FEEL the show and the actors settling in. They were innovative and experimental. They did a Rashomon<\/i>-inspired episode. They did a Mary Tyler Moore<\/i>-inspired episode, all in black and white with a laugh track. They did an entire episode that was an homage to James Joyce’s “The Dead” (which, fightin’ words, was closer to the spirit of the Joyce story than John Huston’s film version). The show could “take” that kind of experimentation because it had done the hard work of making us understand the characters and invest in them personally. But you couldn’t have predicted ANY of that when you see that pilot. And if it had died then and there, you never would have sensed the show’s “entelechy” (look it up: it’s one of my favorite words). But given time, and audience devotion, the show blossomed, developed, went deep deep deep. <\/p>\n This dovetails with Elia Kazan’s famous thoughts on script analysis, having to do with the concept of “spines”. There are multiple spines in any given work. Each character has a spine. Each act has a spine. And then, drilling down, each “beat” in each scene has a spine. The spine could be defined, simplistically, as “What do these characters WANT in this moment, and overall?” The piece as a whole (whatever it is: movie, TV series, play) will have an over-arching spine that can be boiled down into one sentence. Keep it simple. And the spine on that level has nothing to do with plot, with “what happens” in the story. Now, some television shows, like police procedurals, are pretty much only about “what happens”. Now within that, you have a lot of room to create interesting characters and interpersonal dynamics (which happens beautifully with the team on Criminal Minds<\/i>), but the main concern of the show is the plot. You see this in “hospital shows”, which will always be with us. It’s a perfect setup: you have a bunch of diverse people, in one setting, having to deal with stressful situations. You can draw that shit out over multiple seasons and no one will get sick of it (if you have established your characters properly). Much of what happens with episodic television like that is to find a unique (somewhat) spin on the well-worn theme and structure. <\/p>\n \n \nSupernatural<\/i> was created by Eric Kripke. He had a long fascination with urban legends and American folklore (not to mention classic rock and heavy metal, which will be very important to the aesthetic of Supernatural<\/i>) and he also has a deep abiding love of horror movies, so he had a couple of ideas to pitch to the network that brought those things together. His first idea was of a reporter who traveled around the country investigating urban legends. Nobody was interested. His other idea was of two brothers traveling around the country in an old-school muscle car, fighting supernatural forces, and stumbling upon urban legends come to life. And now we come to the deep underpinnings of what would become Supernatural<\/i>. Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/i> was an obvious influence, and Kripke said that while “Buffy’s” plot (high school girl trained to kill vampires and demons) was obvious, what the story was ABOUT was high school. <\/p>\n \n \nAnd so Eric Kripke knew he wanted to create a show that had to do with ghost stories, folklore, and Americana, but once he dropped the more sterile “reporter on the beat” structure and decided to make it an extended family road trip, he stumbled upon what the show was ABOUT. And what the show is ABOUT is family. The demons they fight are incidental, almost. In every single show, that primary sibling relationship is explored and deepened. It’s the POINT. <\/p>\n \n \nThat’s what Kazan was talking about in terms of the spine drilling down from the entire work as a whole into every individual moment. I think it’s the main reason I respond to the show in such a primal way, because it is ABOUT siblings, something I know a little bit about. <\/p>\n Along with Buffy<\/i>, there is a lot of inspiration for Supernatural<\/i> found in X Files<\/i>, with its two-lead-character format and a spooky supernatural plot-line (not to mention a gloomy and moody look and feel). There’s a Scully and Mulder reference thrown in to the Supernatural<\/i> pilot, a clear tipping-of-the-hat. I see a lot of Quantum Leap<\/i> in Supernatural<\/i> as well. Quantum Leap<\/i> was pure episodic, each episode being a self-contained story, something which is almost (almost) entirely out of style now. In Quantum Leap<\/i> there are only two lead characters. <\/p>\n \n \nThey drop in and out of different worlds and situations each week, the only continuity being the relationship they have to one another, and also the strange unexplainable fact that Sam (Scott Bakula – and please, just note the name of the character: one of the brothers in Supernatural<\/i> is named Sam. Coincidence? Nah.) keeps leaping. The meaning of the Leaps in and of themselves (i.e.: “What the hell is really causing these Leaps? And why can’t we stop them? Who is really in charge here<\/i>?”) becomes that larger series-wide arc which comes to gorgeous fruition in the powerful final episode, which ties together Sam’s journey as well as Al’s, something that had been set up two seasons before. Granted, there were entire episodes, though, that had nothing to do with that larger series-wide arc, episodes where the only thing on the table was the various issues having to do with one individual leap. Supernatural<\/i>, for the most part (there are exceptions) never loses sight of that larger arc. It’s ALWAYS there, like static, white noise buzzing on the periphery of the episode. Each story line in each episode somehow dovetails into the larger issue of what the hell is going on in that primary relationship and the “case” they work becomes a pressure cooker of their own emotions and urgency about said emotions. It keeps the series afloat. <\/p>\n Another obvious influence, and perhaps it’s the most important one, is Route 66<\/i>. <\/p>\n \n \nThere are two many similarities to count. Two young men on a road trip across America’s heartland in a cool cool car. Pulling off the interstate, going into small towns. The world has changed a lot since the 1960s: the culture has been so much more homogenized, and highways have now exploded with look-alike rest stops serving brand-name food. But all you have to do is pull off the interstate and you’ll find plenty of unique weirdo little towns with grubby diners, and rickety gas stations with one pump, and falling-down roadhouses with motorcycles lined up outside. This is the majority of America. This is the landscape of Route 66<\/i> and it is the landscape of Supernatural<\/i>. <\/p>\n \n \nOn the Road<\/i> is obviously a huge influence on Supernatural<\/i>, even down to the names of the two lead characters, Sam and Dean Winchester. The brothers’ last name is, of course, a nod to the famous rifle, which played such a huge part in settling this country it’s called “The Gun That Won the West”. Of course these two outlaws would have that last name. Kripke loved horror movies but he always saw the series as a Western. But then there’s the first names: Sam and Dean. If you’ve read On the Road<\/i>, it will jump out at you right away. The book “stars” two male characters, one named Sal (Jack Kerouac’s alter ego) and one named Dean Moriarty. Dean Moriarty, as everyone knows, was based on Neal Cassady, the poet-criminal-druggie-all-around-charismatic-good-looking-bisexual muse who inspired a generation. Lucky him. Lucky us. <\/p>\n \n \nOn the Road<\/i>‘s famous final paragraph is a gorgeous ode to Dean Moriarty:<\/p>\n “So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars’ll be out, and don’t you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n Supernatural<\/i> fans, can you not feel the romantic earthy and yet almost spiritual inspiration for the show (and the character of Dean Winchester, specifically, and his “erotic muse”-like qualities which I went into at some length here<\/a>) in that paragraph? That’s the engine of the show: it gives it its look, its feel, its music, its characters. It’s super American (even though it’s filmed in Vancouver). <\/p>\n The conception of the two main characters was, at first, rather broad (one was the smartypants, one was the sexy brawn), but even in the pilot you can see deeper shadings and complexity that will come to fruition, slowly, deliberately, over the next nine seasons. Which is amazing. That’s a good writing staff. They’ve fumbled the ball a couple of times, forgetting what they wrote in the past, but that’s bound to happen. Continuity is a bitch. But, in general, the two main characters, as they are set up for us in the pilot, remain consistent. Even after watching the whole damn series, if you go back to watch the pilot, you RECOGNIZE those two people (which, as I mentioned, is not always the case – see Melissa in thirtysomething<\/i>, where you basically have to discount the first few episodes in terms of who Melissa eventually turned out to be). With Supernatural<\/i>, this consistency is certainly due to the writing and production staff, who had a crystal clear idea going in what they wanted to create. But it is also due to those two actors, so beautifully cast, so perfect in their roles, Jared Padalecki as Sam and Jensen Ackles as Dean. <\/p>\n \n \nYou’re working blind. You don’t know where the characters are going to go. How can you know what Season 6 will hold when you’re only filming a pilot and you don’t even know if the show will be picked up? But the sense of Arc was strong in the Supernatural<\/i> creative team (to quote Yoda), and speaking of Yoda, during casting, when they saw everybody and their grand-mama for those two main parts, they pitched it to actor Jensen Ackles as: “Sam is the Luke Skywalker of the series. And Dean is the Han Solo.” (They had originally brought Ackles in to read for Sam, but then Padalecki came in and blew everyone away with his sensitivity and accessibility in the part, so they went back to Ackles and sold him on playing Dean with that “Han Solo line”. Ackles took the bait. Thank God.)<\/p>\n \n \nOkay. So Luke and Han Solo is just one image, but it is one powerfully suggestive image. Any smart actor would be able to run with that, and run as far as he can. These two guys have. And it comes back again and again. There are repeated nods to Empire Strikes Back<\/i>, and one of its most famous moments, in the Charlie Arc. “I love you.” “I know.” she says. It becomes a running motif. And in Pac-Man Fever, the tables are turned: She tells Dean she loves him. Dean gets the emotion of the moment, he really does, he FEELS the love from her and he experiences the same love in return, but his response to her statement is: “I know.” <\/p>\n You can see how the creators remembered the genesis of the character, throwing in a wink to that genesis 7 seasons later. <\/p>\n Sometimes the characters have switched off in sensibility, as happens in life (especially with siblings), Luke becoming more Han-ish, and vice versa (which you can also see in the original Star Wars<\/i> trilogy, especially in the storyline where Luke discovers who his real father is), but the concept is elastic enough to be able to include a hell of a lot of complexity. These are Classic Story Tropes, and they have withstood the test of time. The Supernatural<\/i> team was also smart enough, in the pilot, to already introduce complexity into both of these guys, complexity that would just deepen and broaden as the series went on.<\/p>\n \n \nWho’s more rigid, Sam or Dean? Well, there’s not an easy answer. It depends. Dean calls Sam a “control freak” in the pilot, and that’s partly true, but please, Dean, look in the mirror. Rigidity has a different look depending on where you stand and what the motivations are. Rigidity can mean strength, but it also can mean weakness (there’s that image that I love of oak trees being far more susceptible to falling over in hurricane-force winds than willow trees, because the willow has more “give”). Each character’s strength is also his potential Achilles heel, which, naturally, is a story concept going back to the Greeks. <\/p>\n \n \nDean would do anything for his family. This is supposedly a good thing. But it leads him into very treacherous waters, morally, spiritually, and physically. His love for his family is used against him. And to a man who values strength and honor, it’s extremely destabilizing to know you have this chink in the armor and you can’t do anything about it. Additionally, Dean is in his mid-20s when the series starts. He clings to the family circle in a way that may be admirable but also feels like he’s in a cult. What, neither of them are allowed to live their own lives, go to school, get married, move on? Well, no, they’re not. We’ve seen the teaser that opens the series, we know the trauma Dean experienced at 4 years old. No wonder he clings to his brother so much it’s suffocating Sam. Sam, while seemingly more cool-headed than Dean (in the beginning, anyway), as well as being a man who has his appetites under control (which Dean most certainly does not), as WELL as being an independent-thinker who actually removed himself from the clusterfuck that was the Winchester family, has a deep strain of violence and rage that makes Dean look like a pussycat peace-maker. Both brothers underestimate one another, which is great, it’s so how adult siblings often operate. You’re grownups but you still see each other as 2-foot-tall chubby beings in feetie pajamas with mouths full of Cheerios. It’s a trigger, too, for these Tough Guys(\u2122). They are men with a capital “M”, they handle guns with as much familiarity as they handle their own dicks (we assume, anyway), they know how to do shit like fix cars and cook a greasy breakfast and work machinery and hit a bulls-eye, every time. They always have a roll of duct tape on their person at any given moment. But growing up together means the adult man right there is often superimposed with his child-like self, small, scared, and physically weak. And so they often have to pump themselves up, and hide that vulnerability from one another, because intimacy like that is too fucking much and “I’m a GROWN-UP now, man!” (The show would be so different if the two demon-fighters were not related, if it was more of a classic Starsky and Hutch<\/i> buddy-show. You wouldn’t have that deeply unstable familial underbelly which threatens to derail both characters at all times.)<\/p>\n \n \nThe things we admire in Sam or Dean can also become the very thing that holds each man back. It’s fascinating, as are all of the switch-backs and internal\/external contradictions that put pressure on these exceptional men. The guys we see in Season 9 are not the guys we meet in Season 1, and if you have hung in with the series for that long, you know how gratifying it is to watch characters you love grow and develop, even if it’s in ways that seem destructive or scary. It’s a process. The series is far enough in it can relax now. And the actors know these characters as well as they know their own real-life personalities now. Comfort is not really set at a high premium for actors, and rightly so: without high stakes, you’ve got NOTHING. But the comfort that comes from knowing this is a job that will continue<\/i> can often show in the work itself in gorgeous and exciting ways.<\/p>\n \n \nOn the face of it, you could boil down Sam as the conventional one, in the pilot, with the college degree, the sweet supportive girlfriend, his stated monogamy, the plate of homemade cookies on the table left for him. However, once we learn how the Winchester family, all male, has been run, we see that Sam is the most unconventional one of all of them. He saw a way out, and he took it. He’s the rebel. And Dean, once we meet him, is obviously a cocky promiscuous warrior-type, who finances his life through credit card scams, pool games, poker games, and other illegal activities, and is so far outside the mainstream that he is totally off the grid. And yet his values are downright conservative (in the classical Burkean sense). He’s from ‘Merrica, dammit. Guns and cars and burgers and family and, of course, pie, apple or otherwise, yes sir, he’d die for those things. (And if you think I’m knocking any of those things and their political resonance then all I have to say is: You’re new ’round these here parts, aren’t you?) The whole Christian political thing which has come to define mainstream conservatism would obviously hold no attraction for Dean, since he’s seen up close what “dicks” angels can be, Castiel notwithstanding, but that’s why I say classical conservatism. Dean is not a prude sexually, he loves porn, and he likes a good time with a woman who knows the score, and his values are of the take-care-of-yourself-no-handouts-man-up-whatever-you-do-is-your-own-business-as-long-as-you-don’t-hurt-anyone variety. Dean probably doesn’t vote, but if he did, you can take a guess what platform he’d go for. So he’s a criminal and a slut and he’s also a devoted family man. ALL of the above is true. <\/p>\n \n \nBut \u2026 and this is fabulous, in terms of establishing character and depth without saying a WORD \u2026 the characters’ first scene together is a mostly-silent and absolutely ferocious physical fight. Sam lies asleep in his college housing, beside his girlfriend, and he is woken up at night by a sound. He goes to investigate. He senses a figure moving around in the next room. He attacks. A fight ensues in the dark. And it is instantly apparent that this is no awkward fumbling fight. This is Ninja stuff, from both sides. This is Assassin Territory. Of course, a second later, Sam has Dean pinned on the floor, and suddenly Sam can see who it is he is trying to destroy. Dean grins, drawls, “Easy tiger” into Sam’s face (and it’s a classic Han Solo wisecrack moment), and their first scene commences, the two of them heaving for breath, still pumped-up with adrenaline. The brothers haven’t seen each other in years at this point. <\/p>\n \n But that first conversation (where we get so much information about these two guys) does not start before we see that fight, and the fight is (in many ways) the most important piece of information we get about these two men we are meeting for the first time as adults (and they are men, despite the fact that the series insists on referring to them as “boys”, even now, when they’re both in their 30s.) That fight, with both of them in silhouette against the dark blue window, is superbly performed by both actors (both of them are amazing athletes, and great physically – none of this “I save my best work for my closeup” stuff which suffuses shows like Grey’s Anatomy<\/i>). Nothing we have seen (briefly) of Sam up until that point has prepared us for how he fights. He seems gentle, humble, in need of the validation of his friends, and almost shy. He hints to his friends that his family is not “the Bradys”, but he doesn’t seem dark and brooding or anything like that. If you’re watching the show for the first time, your brain will have to re-adjust what you think of Sam once you see that fight. That was my experience watching it for the first time. I thought: “Oh. Okay. So \u2026 he’s freakin’ scary as hell. Good to know.” <\/p>\n \n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nNeal Cassady and Jack Kerouac<\/i><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n