by Kianni Keys ’19, Arts and Entertainment Writer

The worst spot to be in on vacation is endlessly browsing through Netflix trying to find your next big binge. The recommendations don’t satisfy you and neither do your cable recordings. So you reach out to your friends and get some recommendations and now you’re sitting on your couch with a few shows under your belt and you decide to start the first episode….

And it sucks. So you move on to the next show and watch the first episode of that one….

And it sucks. And eventually you get through every single recommendation and are back to endlessly browsing through Netflix trying to find your next binge—except now you’re a little more disappointed.

I believe that this story could’ve ended a little better—actually a lot better.

Everyone has a right to dislike a TV show: I’m not going to tell you that your tastes or opinions are invalid. What I will say, however, is that, if you exercised a little more patience, you most likely would’ve found your next big binge.

Whenever I start a new show, I have a very strong rule that I enforce on myself. I call it my Two Episode Rule.

Remember all those first episodes you didn’t like which made you leave the show? Those are called pilots.

Pilots are the first episodes of a show, and 99% of the time they become people’s least favorite episodes. Why? Because pilots fail to showcase the characters’ maximum potential.

Pilots are, in essence, pitches. When a script gets approved by the company, they want to see a pilot before they order the rest of the episodes to create a season. The pilot has to do a couple things: define the plot, introduce the characters, and show potential for future seasons.  This means that pilots are one, a lot older than the rest of the season if the company decides not to reshoot them, and two, a big exposition dump of shallow introductions and plot devices. Pilots are basically the equivalent of “we’re not like other girls” because the company wants to pay for a show that is unique and a hit, so everything that’s “not like other shows” is shoved in your face.

Of course, there will always be exceptions: Breaking Bad and Marvelous Mrs. Maisel are two shows with absolutely amazing pilots. Breaking Bad’s pilot gets the audience straight into a chaotic plot that won’t slow down for anyone and Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s pilot introduces us to a bustling but beautiful time in history while also showing comedy through the negative turning points in life. These are fun to experience, but rare in the industry, so if you’re looking for a show I wouldn’t set the bar up as high.

So my Two Episode Rule is this: when starting a new show, make yourself watch and finish both the pilot and the next episode. The second episode has the freedom of having familiar characters that can now have a dedicated storyline, not just a surface introduction. The plot now has setups for future episodes without being obvious and it’s a very rewarding process.

For example, during the fall I started watching a show called Mr. Sunshine. Netflix decided to release one episode every week, so I only had the pilot to watch.

This pilot was the most confusing mess of backstories, history lessons, and future/past jumps I had ever scene. In the span of around an hour, I had been introduced to over ten characters AND their parents, so I am confident in saying that I had no idea what was going on.

I really wanted to give up on the show, but I kept to my rule and waited a week for the second episode. I went in already planning about stopping the show after this episode but little did I know how surprised I would be. The second episode quickly summed up the pilot then expanded into a beautiful world and entrancing, suspenseful narrative. I was hooked, and I ended up anxiously waiting on the couch every week a couple minutes before the next episode dropped.  This went on for 24 weeks and 24 amazing episodes. Later on, I realized how important the pilot was to the rest of the plot and was actually thankful it started that way.

So that’s why I enforce my Two Episode Rule: for pleasant surprises, and to wait for a great big hook to swoop me into my next big binge. Most of my favorite episodes tend to be the second episode anyway, with very few exceptions. I guess you can think of them as second pilots.