This week I'm featuring some of the 2021 Emmy winners.
The Premise: Aging Las Vegas comic legend Deborah Vance finds herself getting slowly pushed aside by her casino as she approaches an incredible milestone, while promising young TV writer Ava Daniels faces working for Deborah as the only option she has left after a bad joke on Twitter.
Structure: The pilot, entitled "There is No Line" and written by Lucia Aniello & Paul W. Downs & Jen Stasky, has three very clear sections: Meeting the Characters, in which we meet first Deborah in her world and establish her problem, then meet Ava and establish her big challenge--whether to work for Deborah or not; The Struggle, in which each of them tries to fight the problem they're facing; and Finding A Way Forward Together, in which they meet, hate each other--continuing the struggle to resist what they're being told to do--but then end up working together anyway.
It's worth watching the ep just to see how efficiently the writers move through these sections. There's not a single repeat beat or moment wasted.
A Moment To Watch: The Opening
The show opens with a camera behind Deborah as she ends her set at the Palmetto, then follows her from behind as she walks off stage and to her dressing room, meeting various people on the way and establishing both them as characters in her world and other parts of her life--her other business dealings, her hobby as a collector.
Even as the shot-from-behind sequence ends at the dressing room, the underlying Show Deborah In Her World idea continues as she hops on a plane, does her QVC show and a photo shoot, then comes home to her mansion, takes off her wig, feeds her dogs steak and carrots and goes to bed.
It's a classic example of how to establish a character and a world quickly and well.
In watching Deborah in this way, we develop an immediate connection with her. Rather than any one Save the Cat-type moment we get a bunch of different kinds of reasons to like her. She's successful and funny. She's decent and professional to everyone she meets. She works hard and without complaint despite the effort it takes. And at the end of the day she's a vulnerable human being who is pretty much alone.
And creating that connection is essential, so that when she then loses her shit in the next scene, or later as the series' emphasis falls more onto the pathetic and self-destructive fish out of water Ava, we never write Deborah off as a diva or the antagonist. The groundwork of our relationship with her has already been laid. And they did it in about 4 minutes.
Another Moment to Watch: The Deborah/Ava Meeting
The Deborah/Ava conversation is really well constructed: We start with Ava being called out for not having done any research on Deborah; then Deborah tossing her out and the insults back and forth; then as Ava leaves the truth about why she's here and the joke she told; and finally, on the road out, what the joke should have been and her getting hired.
One thing I really like about the sequence is the fact that they find ways to incorporate action into the beats, like her walking out and then we do the third beat, or the fourth beat coming after a crazy car chase. When justified, action generates momentum and interest.
And that's the other thing--they keep finding good reasons to justify the sequence continuing. It's so clear right from the start these two cannot work together and don't want to; the biggest challenge of the episode is to find a way to be true to those impulses and still have them end up together. So as she leaves Ava makes a crack that Deborah likes, which leads her to follow Ava--which tells us something important about Deborah, namely that the joke is the most important thing to her. And it's the challenge of fixing the joke that makes Deborah chase Ava down.
Now You Give it a Go
Look at the first five pages of one of your own pilots. Read it not as the writer but as an audience member. What have you established about your main character in those pages? By the end of them, do I know who they are, the contents of their world, what they want and what their problem is? And what reasons have I given for the audience to like them?
Depending on your story you might feel five pages is not enough. And you might be right--though if you're doing a sitcom, I'd challenge you to consider your approaching. You have so little time, and every page is precious.
