Television Pilots Quotes

Getting 'Millionaire' right was as hard as writing 'Dirty Pretty Things.' Harder. In the pilots, contestants kept wanting to take the money; we had to find ways - the lifelines - of keeping them in the seat, answering the questions. But there is so much snobbery about popular culture. A game show just isn't valued as much as a novel.

I developed the pilot for 'Entertainment Tonight' with Jack Haley, Jr. and Al Masini, who became my business partner in 'Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous,' 'Runaway' and several other shows and specials.

In the time since I've done 'Bad Teacher,' I've produced an independent movie and directed two pilots. So I love to do all different types of things.

My first movie was this independent that I did on the Erie Canal in 1995, called Erie, that I don't know if you could even get, actually with Felicity Huffman. And then from that I did this film that was eventually called The Broken Giant later that fall. And then I kind of started getting into doing pilots.

Pilots get made, and they don't go to series. Stuff gets written and never gets made. I've tried to develop stuff that never went. It comes and it goes. It's a part of the process.

NBC's pilot season of 1994 is legendary in the business. In a world where failure is commonplace, we midwifed the birth of both 'Friends' and 'ER'. While 'ER' came essentially out of the blue, we'd been casting around for a 'Friends'-like show for some time at the network.

The pilot system in television is utterly broken. It's a huge waste of money.

Do you know there were two pilots made for 'Have I Got News For You' before the series started two decades ago: one hosted by Angus Deayton and one hosted by me. But I was told that they couldn't have a woman in charge of the news.

I've done so many television pilots. I've done eleven I think and I've never had one get picked up. There was never one that I was a guest star on. It's just fascinating, but I don't think it would be fun to be recognized all the time.

When I read both pilots for 'Breaking Bad' and the 'Michael J. Fox Show,' I turned to my husband in real life, and I'm like, 'That is an amazing script.'

I've done, like, eight pilots, and every time, everyone thinks it's going to go for 10 years.

I've written several pilots that haven't gone, so that's why you haven't seen any.

I've done episodic television and some other things that have been written by other people.

There are a lot of good shows that don't get picked up. Like that Ben Stiller pilot, Heat Vision And Jack? That would have been a great show, but somehow it slipped by.

I always knew how to cook and at one point in my career where I had done nine television pilots before Three's Company and they all failed, I just got discouraged.