Why didn’t the ‘Global Frequency’ pilot work?

David Alan Mack

David Mack is the international bestselling author of more than twenty novels and novellas, including the Star Trek Destiny trilogy and the supernatural thriller The Calling. His writing credits span several media, including television (for episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), magazines, newspapers, comic books, computer games, radio, and the Internet. He lives in New York City with his wife, Kara.

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13 Responses

  1. John Ordover says:

    I would have shared your frustration, but it could have been fixed with a small piece of dialog.

    “We can just dump him into the bay.”
    “And make the whole coast radioactive for like forever?”

    But better yet, why establish a weakness at all? Drop the shower scene.

    • David Alan Mack says:

      True, your approach would make it possible to close the plot hole and preserve the story’s original ending. However, part of my argument is that the original ending was the wrong one for weekly network prime-time television. My approach would also have established a baseline moral/ethical conflict between Flynn and Zero that could have been explored as the series moved forward, and it would have started the characters on equal footing. The original formula is predicated on “Miranda Zero is always right,” and I think that undermines the agency of the ostensible lead character.

      • John Ordover says:

        Oh, I agree with you completely – if they had some reason they wanted to keep their storyline intact and have it make sense, they could -at least- have used my solution, but you are right about them being wrong from the get go.

      • Miles Vorkosigan says:

        If you follow the logic, they could’ve stopped the guy by dunking him in a rain barrel. Rogers, as story editor and showrunner, shoulda caught the plot hole long before the pilot got ordered. But I’ve seen shows with logic gaps big enough to fly a Vorlon planet killer through that got picked up and ran for years. Having a rabbi at a network works wonders, but if the guy gets canned before you get on the air, you’re screwed. A lot of good series failed to make the cut for another season because the head of programming didn’t like the show; Les Moonves killed Enterprise when it was getting good because he didn’t like the show. Sir Michael Grade wanted to kill Doctor Who because he liked Roland the Rat better. The list goes on.

        • David Alan Mack says:

          Miles, I know you’re absolutely right about the loss of the network rabbi being the more important issue for the GF pilot. Despite the plot hole and the excessively dark ending, GF might have been picked up in a heartbeat had its champion not left abruptly. And, having lost its executive support, it’s likely no change or revision would likely have endeared it to the new network head.

          That said, I still think the inherent flaw in the pilot and the off-putting nature of the original ending might have seriously impaired its chances of being picked up at another network once John Rogers and his team were cleared to shop the pilot around town. The loss of its rabbi might have doomed it at the WB, but had its ending been stronger and more palatable to a network-TV sensibility, it might have been picked up at another network. Alas, we’ll never know for sure.

          Bottom line: I just hope that these ideas are taken to heart in the second pilot.

          • Miles Vorkosigan says:

            Oh, I agree, David. Sometimes what works on the printed page fails huge on film. And with faint apologies to Alan Moore, the giant squid that was so effective on paper woulda looked stupid on film if Watchmen had been done the way he wanted. A lot of the bits of dialogue that were awesome in print would bogged the narrative in the film. The plot holes in GF that no one noticed in the book were more obvious when filmed, and a good story editor would’ve caught it. But a second pilot may or may not solve things.
            .
            There’s something in the trade called Development Hell. Unless a showrunner is also the head of the network and the studio boss and the completion bond issuer, they’re gonna go through it. It’s no guarantee that, even if you’ve written something Pulitzer-worthy and cast it with acting gods on the perfect set, it’s gonna go over during its first season or get picked up at all. And it’s worse these days; The Dick van Dyke Show was given a guaranteed full-season order outta the gate because the network needed shows, so a gangly Yankee could fumble through a season of material written by and for a New Yawk Jew and work out the kinks in the show. That first season was all Carl Reiner stuff, not written for Dick, and there were some rough edges that had to be dealt with. After the first season, the show flew beautifully.
            .
            Star Trek. The original pilot was wonderful, very much what we’d come to expect from TNG decades later, but NBC brass though it was too cerebral, and hated the idea of a female First Officer. Roddenberry retooled it, and the show took off. Development Hell. Some shows get out, a lot don’t. Stan Winston’s Forbidden Planet. Mike Minor’s Strat. Oliver Stone’s The Demolished Man. John Woo’s The Robinson: Lost In Space. Tim Minear’s Bruce Wayne. Buckaroo Banzai: The Series. The list is endless. Anyway, sorry about the rant.

  2. John Ordover says:

    I would have shared your frustration, but it could have been fixed with a small piece of dialog."We can just dump him into the bay.""And make the whole coast radioactive for like forever?"But better yet, why establish a weakness at all? Drop the shower scene.

    • David Alan Mack says:

      True, your approach would make it possible to close the plot hole and preserve the story's original ending. However, part of my argument is that the original ending was the wrong one for weekly network prime-time television. My approach would also have established a baseline moral/ethical conflict between Flynn and Zero that could have been explored as the series moved forward, and it would have started the characters on equal footing. The original formula is predicated on "Miranda Zero is always right," and I think that undermines the agency of the ostensible lead character.

      • John Ordover says:

        Oh, I agree with you completely – if they had some reason they wanted to keep their storyline intact and have it make sense, they could -at least- have used my solution, but you are right about them being wrong from the get go.

      • Miles Vorkosigan says:

        If you follow the logic, they could've stopped the guy by dunking him in a rain barrel. Rogers, as story editor and showrunner, shoulda caught the plot hole long before the pilot got ordered. But I've seen shows with logic gaps big enough to fly a Vorlon planet killer through that got picked up and ran for years. Having a rabbi at a network works wonders, but if the guy gets canned before you get on the air, you're screwed. A lot of good series failed to make the cut for another season because the head of programming didn't like the show; Les Moonves killed Enterprise when it was getting good because he didn't like the show. Sir Michael Grade wanted to kill Doctor Who because he liked Roland the Rat better. The list goes on.

        • David Alan Mack says:

          Miles, I know you're absolutely right about the loss of the network rabbi being the more important issue for the GF pilot. Despite the plot hole and the excessively dark ending, GF might have been picked up in a heartbeat had its champion not left abruptly. And, having lost its executive support, it's likely no change or revision would likely have endeared it to the new network head.That said, I still think the inherent flaw in the pilot and the off-putting nature of the original ending might have seriously impaired its chances of being picked up at another network once John Rogers and his team were cleared to shop the pilot around town. The loss of its rabbi might have doomed it at the WB, but had its ending been stronger and more palatable to a network-TV sensibility, it might have been picked up at another network. Alas, we'll never know for sure.Bottom line: I just hope that these ideas are taken to heart in the second pilot.

          • Miles Vorkosigan says:

            Oh, I agree, David. Sometimes what works on the printed page fails huge on film. And with faint apologies to Alan Moore, the giant squid that was so effective on paper woulda looked stupid on film if Watchmen had been done the way he wanted. A lot of the bits of dialogue that were awesome in print would bogged the narrative in the film. The plot holes in GF that no one noticed in the book were more obvious when filmed, and a good story editor would've caught it. But a second pilot may or may not solve things. .There's something in the trade called Development Hell. Unless a showrunner is also the head of the network and the studio boss and the completion bond issuer, they're gonna go through it. It's no guarantee that, even if you've written something Pulitzer-worthy and cast it with acting gods on the perfect set, it's gonna go over during its first season or get picked up at all. And it's worse these days; The Dick van Dyke Show was given a guaranteed full-season order outta the gate because the network needed shows, so a gangly Yankee could fumble through a season of material written by and for a New Yawk Jew and work out the kinks in the show. That first season was all Carl Reiner stuff, not written for Dick, and there were some rough edges that had to be dealt with. After the first season, the show flew beautifully. .Star Trek. The original pilot was wonderful, very much what we'd come to expect from TNG decades later, but NBC brass though it was too cerebral, and hated the idea of a female First Officer. Roddenberry retooled it, and the show took off. Development Hell. Some shows get out, a lot don't. Stan Winston's Forbidden Planet. Mike Minor's Strat. Oliver Stone's The Demolished Man. John Woo's The Robinson: Lost In Space. Tim Minear's Bruce Wayne. Buckaroo Banzai: The Series. The list is endless. Anyway, sorry about the rant.