A brother and sister, close in age, are cute, quirky, yet relatively normal and easy for the audience to identify with (think Ross and Rachel, but a little closer to normal), living near each other in LA, NYC, or some other big city, and they’re both single and looking.
Every week, each of them has an adventure with on-line dating in which they each find someone who seems datable but who reveals himself or herself to be utterly unacceptable, for a variety of reasons. Some weeks the brother is the A story, some weeks he’s the B story—some weeks, he (or she) might even find a partner who makes to the end of an episode without being outed as insane, so the power (of having found someone to date) shifts from time to time. The online dating is a constant but with differences: some weeks someone is answering bro or sis’s online ad, other weeks they’re answering others’ ads, sometimes the ads are honest (theirs or others’), some weeks the ads are flagrantly dishonest. They try different strategies (sometimes dating multiple partners, other times dating serially) but always critique the other’s current strategy, even when they go on to use it in subsequent episodes.
This reminds me a little of the sitcom Murphy Brown, in which nearly every episode she had a new secretary, and nearly all of them were wildly incompetent, complete nutjobs, or both.
Feels more like a sketch or a youtube series. Or one of the ongoing B- stories on a conventional sitcom set in a workplace or a home.
For a sitcom, you need to create a little world, a welcoming microcosm, that people want to return to again and again. (Hence bars, living rooms, and offices as common settings for sitcoms. )
So the brother and sister are young, and single. So far, so good. They’re both dating, unsuccessfully. Even better- conflict, anxiety, frustration, being at the mercy of our physical desires despite our best efforts - this is the stuff from which comedy is made.
Other than that, though, what’s their connection to each other? Do they work at the same company? Maybe it’s the family business. Did they have to move home after college, because like so many 20 somethings, job prospects aren’t good.
Maybe that’s it: two 20 something siblings end up having to move back to their parents house b/c of the crash. Now, they have to work double shifts at the family business, just to make ends meet, and to keep the biz afloat.
So, no time for regular dating. Online is the only way to go, but they’re all crazy.
Meanwhile, Mom and Dad are going through a second childhood. They want to sell up and go party in Arizona. Naked golfing and ecstasy parties at the senior apt. complex. Or something.
Yea, I think using online dating as a hook for every episode would get pretty tired fairly quickly. Especially since, except for the online bit, the dating life of twenty-somethings in the big city isn’t exactly untrodden territory for recent sitcoms.
For example, on 2 1/2 Men, Alan hooking up with a new crazy chick every week would have been a running gag, not the main story.
Standard sitcom structure: A story (most screen time), B story(less screen time), and C story, which could be and often is a running gag (least screen time of all).
There’s an episode of the New Adventures of Old Christine where she runs through a series of dates with undateable people.
Enough for a storyline in a few episodes, but nowhere near enough for a whole show.
I would change the name to simply “Dates and Nuts.”
I do agree with some others that a different date each week could get repetitive and predictable… but maybe not. Just don’t have one of your leads stop dating somebody because she has Man Hands.
My idea is about a character who continually puts himself into dire circumstances because he puts off important work or tasks. It’s called “The Procrastinator.” I know this character well!
The sitcom 100 Questions did this in reverse: our heroine is at a dating service, answering the usual questions in anticipation of getting paired up with the right guy, and invariably getting sidetracked by reminiscing about a relationship that failed.
(“Have You Ever Dated A Bad Boy?” Sure did! It started out great! It ended horribly! Let me now spend twenty-two minutes on a flashback to that effect!)
Reminds me of Love, American Style. Instead of a pair of regular characters like the brother and sister try a single central character who talks to guest stars about their dating experience. This person, probably a woman, has an ongoing side story about her love life and a once a season three episode arc about a new relationship of her own.
3 Catholic Priests live on a remote island off the coast of Ireland. The main priest character is vain, slightly pompous and ultimately extremely frustrated; the other priest are a child-like simpleton and a psychotic geriatric alcoholic who is too far gone to string together a coherent sentence. The rest of the island is inhabited by outlandish Irish stereotypes.
Each week the main character, through his greed, vanity, petty squabbling or pure bad luck, gets him and his fellow priests in to a ludicrous situations which soon take a turn for the worse and his efforts to extract himself from the situation only exacerbates it.
I like this. OK, it’s called “Dates and Nuts” now. Maybe “Nuts and Dates.”
Understand, this was just my 30-second pitch. Obviously, there has to be more than just a brother-and-sister team–can’t think of many shows that have just two recurring characters.
Also, I think I’m willing to pitch it here because it’s so damned hard to get anyone with the power to consider a TV series to read a pitch that I’m not going to bother. (I’ve taught a few college courses in “TV Script-writing” and the one point I kept stressing was that no one, but no one, who isn’t willing to work for a few years as a low-level functionary on a TV staff is going to be able to pitch a script at an agent. Except for people who’ve had TV series air before, who’ve all gone the low-level functionary route.) So I appreciate the feedback–I just wish I had some better contacts in the business, because I think this idea would work, if it were fleshed out properly.
In the interest of fighting ignorance, I’ll point out that staff writing jobs on Guild signatory shows are great. They pay quite well, and are coveted positions. Every opening on staff gets hundreds of submissions by the major agencies.
It only makes sense that networks and prodcos are mainly interested in taking pitches for experienced TV writers. Creating and running a TV show is a multi million dollar enterprise. Most of the time, it’s foolish to trust that to an amateur.
There are cases where a property that’s proven its success in some other market can get made. Successful standup comedians, popular comic strips, best selling novels, award winning plays. A feature film script that gets produced and becomes a hit can also open doors for a writer looking to create TV shows.
Most of the TV writers I’ve worked with started as either office or set PA’s (production assistants) and after a year or two moved into writers’ assistant positions, and then a few years after that into staff jobs. A few started out as playwrights in the theatre. Some of the sitcom writers started in standup comedy.
Writers’ assistant jobs are in and of themselves very hard to get, and some people get stuck as WA’s or script coordinators (senior WA’s) well into their 30’s. (Or even, 40’s :eek:) Being a WA definitely gives you better odds on getting that coveted staff job, but it’s not a guarantee.
What’s been alarmingly common among the people I know is that they get a season or two of work on staff, and are then out of work for a season or 3. The 200 K plus that you make if you survive a season on staff may have to last you through a couple of years of little or no work.
Okay, here’s my (not yet fully realized) pitch: middle-class African-American family from a northern city decide to pick up stakes and move down south. It’s too expensive up north, too cold, too whatever - they’re part of the reverse Great Migration trend. They move to a small southern town where the wife has some relatives. She spent summers down there as a kid and is super excited to move back for good - she totally buys into the southern charm. Her husband, meanwhile, is miserable at the thought of trading his northern metropolis for this hillbilly town. (Think “Green Acres” but with the genders reversed.) Comedy ensues as they settle into the pace of southern life and both of their expectations are confirmed and upended.
