How Can I Get My TV Pilot Picked Up?

Dear Lopy:

I just made a pilot for a big (OK, big-ish) TV Network, and it was rejected for being different from other TV shows. How can I get it picked up by another network?

Signed,

Hapless in Hollywood

Dear Hapless,

Here’s how to get your rejected pilot picked up by another network, in six easy steps.

1. Make sure that, in the past, you’ve created other well-done and successful television shows, like, for example, Scrubs.

2. Create a pilot that makes fun of the current TV climate, but use your previous trick of centering a show around a realistic (but funny) male friendship. Make them kind of nerdy, so that the most vocal online niche can identify.

3. Make sure that the network that rejected the pilot goes away, or gets squashed into a brand-new network: that way other networks aren’t technically picking up someone else’s rejects. It also helps if that brand new network has a terrible name.

4. Leak it to YouTube. Or don’t leak it to YouTube yourself — plausible deniability is always a good thing — but have a pretty good idea of who did the leaking, nudge nudge wink wink.

5. Act surprised when it’s discovered. Don’t act surprised when people like it, and it becomes a huge online hit.

6. Do it now, while YouTube is still wild and free, and before it gets gobbled up by one of the huge corporate entities that alternately curses and strokes it. After that, it will probably be like MySpace, which peaked out about 1.365 nanoseconds prior to the moment Rupert Murdoch got his grubby hands on it.

If you follow these steps, your pilot will get picked up. After that, it’s up to you to turn it into a successful series. Good luck.

• NBC revives ‘Watching’