2026 may get a spot in broadcast history as the year NBC brought pilot season back. The network this year ordered eight pilots, five dramas and three comedies, the most any broadcast network has done in a cycle since the pandemic. Even more importantly, NBC is doing it in the traditional January – May window.
The network has been sticking to the typical timeline of pilot production, delivery and testing, with company screenings, usually the last step before series pickup decisions are made, slated for the last week of April, I hear.
With screenings two and a half weeks away, pilots are still being put together, so information about them is incomplete, based mostly on reactions to dailies, early cuts and tapings.
The overall sentiment is that networks scaling back from the heights of pilot season volume in the 2000s when the major broadcasters would make
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