TV Pilots Revving Up In Hopes Of Helping Network Ratings Soar

It’s pilot season in Hollywood.

It’s that time of the year when networks seem to be racing in circles, chasing their own tails. They’re in pursuit of new series for their ever-changing schedules.

Networks generally decide by late April or early May what shows will join their schedules in the fall or be developed as possible replacements later on. That makes springtime in Hollywood a whirlwind of new-show ideas and ideas that have been turned into proposed first installments of new series-pilot episodes.

Whether these test pilots will become series is problematic, but it’s always curious to see what Hollywood comes up with. Here’s a sampler:

NBC has cast Kyle MacLachlen as the wily electronic-surveillance ace played by Gene Hackman in the film “The Conversation,” with Francis Ford Coppola, director of the original movie, serving as an executive producer of the proposed series. When we left Harry Caul in the film, he was going insane, but TV has a way of fixing those things.

CBS is working on “Shock Treatment,” about a preteen whiz-kid who creates a computerized superhero who can spin in and out of cyberspace and cause havoc. The producers say “The Shock,” as he’s nicknamed, is a mixture of Jim Carrey, Robin Williams and Max Headroom.

In a proposed “Daisy & Chess” sitcom at Fox, rock-club waitress Daisy, played by Rosanna Arquette, is a reforming rock groupie who can’t remember which bass player fathered her son Chess, now in the third grade. But Chess wants to know who his father is.

ABC is hoping that prime-time soap opera may be due for a comeback with “Malibu Branch,” being readied by Esther and Richard Shapiro (“Dynasty”). An early look at the script shows sunny Malibu filled with violence and corruption, undercover cops, saucy (and shapely) women and fabulously rich men.

There are dozens and dozens of pilots in the air, sometimes only as concepts on paper. This year the competition has been widened with the addition of WB (Warner Brothers) and UPN (United Paramount Network), both of which need shows.

Television is a volatile business. Some pilots are canceled before they can be taped. Roles are cast and recast.

In many cases networks produce the pilots, often as two-hour “movies” that can be aired and then, if they get good ratings, expanded into series.

This season’s samples: “Jag” (NBC), about one of the Navy’s first female combat aviators, and “The Client” (CBS), based on the John Grisham novel. The TV movie focuses on Reggie Love, the defense attorney and recovering alcoholic played in the film by Susan Sarandon, up for an Oscar in the role.

In some cases the concepts are tested inside a going series. “The Nanny” is trying a spinoff idea to air as an upcoming episode. Fran Fine (Fran Drescher) sets up an interview for Mary Ruth (Tracy Nelson) as a shampoo girl in the Chatterbox in Queens. Mary Ruth is beautiful, funny and perky, “a young Mary Tyler Moore,” read the casting notice. The salon owner is flirty, sexy, cool, lovable Mr. Anthony (Patrick Cassidy), a womanizer “a la Ted Danson,” again from the casting notice.

Of course, the concept of familiarity is endemic to television. The new WB network is considering “77 Sunset Strip ‘95,” with Clint Eastwood as an executive producer. It’s an updated version of ABC’s 1958-1964 series, with an ex-Pittsburgh detective opening an L.A. agency named after his favorite TV show. There’s a kid named Kookie (after Edd “Kookie” Byrnes from the old show) who’s a messenger-runner by day and aspiring standup comic at night.

With “The X-Files” a hot ratings number on Fox, similar shows are sure to follow. Fox has two possibilities: “The Bureau” has a man-woman FBI team working with a lot of in-depth psychological reconstructions, and in “The Kindred” a San Francisco cop is in constant pursuit of Julian Luna, who rules the vampire clans of the city.