Hey ladies and gentlemen. I hope you all are enjoying the Pilot for Singles. I have already written Season 1 in its entirety. Hopefully, I can find a way to post the subsequent episodes on here for review.
Thanks.
Anthony Ogunware
Looks like I found a way to post Season 1's episodes! I hope you all enjoy!
Thanks. :)
I just read the pilot and is a great show, altough the names of the episodes are too much "Friends" for me, also "The One where Tony's date doesn't show" is too long, better to be "The One with Tony's date" or "Failed date", other thing is that Tony seems to be the main character, but I really hate him on the pilot from start to end, usually I don't hate the main characters but in this case I really do, hope your show gets picked up as I keep changing mine so much I'm not sure when I'll submit it.
Thank you for the critiques Guillermo. I know in most Sitcoms, like you mentioned, the main character is the one to be liked, but, I just wanted to give it a new twist, or something that has not been done before . . . with a "semi-evil" main character. Maybe he'll change his ways in Season 2? :) The titles are definitely like Friends, as Friends was my inspiration when I decided to write this Sitcom in 2009. I believe I'll have the Title of each episode changed in the future.
Thank you for your well wishes! Hopefully you will find time to read the other episodes, as from Episode 1 on out, I leave the readers with cliffhangers.
Thanks again for taking time out of your day to read my Sitcom!
Thank you for the critiques Guillermo. I know in most Sitcoms, like you mentioned, the main character is the one to be liked, but, I just wanted to give it a new twist, or something that has not been done before . . . with a "semi-evil" main character. Maybe he'll change his ways in Season 2? :) The titles are definitely like Friends, as Friends was my inspiration when I decided to write this Sitcom in 2009. I believe I'll have the Title of each episode changed in the future.
Thank you for your well wishes! Hopefully you will find time to read the other episodes, as from Episode 1 on out, I leave the readers with cliffhangers.
Thanks again for taking time out of your day to read my Sitcom!
I will admit that I think you need to go to the very first episode and revamp it. Then work on the following episodes based on it. I think you write waaaay to convenient for yourself. Your characters never have any obstacles in terms of picking up women. I know that you love 'Friends' but when we see Joey pick up a chick, we catch the tail end of the conversation and in that, we assume he is a charmer. In yours, we get to see these guys picking up chicks and they are not charmers. The dialogue is way too convenient and serves your purposes as a writer but not the purposes of the characters. Sure, guys pick up chicks to get laid. But it cant be that easy, especially with poor dialogue.
There are a lot of inconsistencies too (ie peephole). Jason is proud to stare through looking at an old couple, but in another episode is sheepish about looking through.
Jokes are flat. Comparing old people making out to "free porn" is flat. Porn is readily available on the internet nowadays and we've been so desensitized by it. Rather than have him excited watching it, make him a bit disgusted but aroused for some reason. Give him a bit of internal complexity.
The ending of your dialogue and jokes are poorly structured. Watch some shows and see how they construct a proper line of dialogue. Less is more and you need to edit out a lot of words. Why say something in 10 words when you can say it in 7?
Will definitely take in the critique to improve my work. :) Thanks a lot for the information, and most importantly, thanks for giving Singles a read. =) I love how you're continuing to read the episodes . . . something may be there? :) Hope you're enjoying the concept nonetheless. :)
A Participant says:
I am sorry, but I do not share other people's enthusiasm.
I cannot rate the whole series. I do not want to give it a really bad grade. You put a lot of work into all the scripts, so I'll leave the judging of the first 10 pages of pilot to any network executives.
I found you characters to be extremely unrealistic. And I do not mean this in a positive way. They are doing the opposite of what normal humans are doing for no particular reason at all (except a drunken bet). I found only two attempts at amusing conversation in the first 6 pages.
One week old underwear fight? The shit all over hands and towel secondary story? It makes me pretty frustrated. It's unfunny, degrading and pointless.
Please, tell me which episode you are most proud of. I want to read that one to see if it develops into something more palpable.
Cheers.
The rating system is there for anyone to give their positive critiques and ratings, as well as negative critiques and ratings. Thanks! =)
Hey man, so I read through your episode 1 as well as looked through the mini-bible and figured I'll give you a full critique since that's what these forums seem to be for. Firstly I'll start off with a positive, which is you clearly have been thinking of this and sitting on this for a while, which means you have given it a lot of work and effort.
The negative side to this however is how ingrained this is into your brain, and whether or not you want to edit anything or change anything, since the idea at the very precipice can work.
The show I think you're trying to get is three guys trying to relive their college years/live the college lifestyle they feel that they missed out on. This is a story that can be interesting and fun to watch, it's just you go about it the wrong way I think at the starting. Your opening I think you want to establish him as the anti-hero or the villain somewhat, which can work, but if you want to villainize him, then don't pull your punch. Make him buy a hooker and his girlfriend walk in on him, or break something of hers or something to truly make him the jerk or unlikeable and his other two friends can be the classic friends, reluctant to join him.
In terms of where you would go with this show, it could be endless, because them wanting to live the college lifestyle can only last until a friend gets a girl or the guy starts to change, you've left yourself an open ended story and the potential to make something, it just needs re-tooling and revamping to make it plausible and pop off the page.
One possible change I think that you should change is the titles, while it's minute and not important it's been done, so giving the episode 1 for example "The Breakups" could even be a way around it, just because a comparison to a great show can be flattering but then people are forced to compare and contrast, which won't give you a fair shake.
I've changed my rating of yours, since at first I didn't think it worked, but now I've taken a step back and re-evaluated it and I think it could. You just need that push to get going as well as a bit of tightening of the plot/jokes. I hope any of my observations are helpful and if you can offer me any insights on my proposal, don't hesitate to.
Thank you very much for your critique, Eric. I'm glad you gave honest feedback, and I can admit that I do like to read what people are thinking when it comes to Singles. I did think about this idea in 2009, and when AmazonStudios released that they were evaluating sitcoms, I decided to give it a shot for the community to read.
I agree with you when it comes to the anti-hero, in Tony. I do because mostly in sitcoms, the main character is a likable person . . . I just attempted to go the reverse to try something different.
I believe what you say in this can go along way, in that there are endless possibilities and endless plots/episodes one can come up with.
I left my project open for that very reason in that anyone can add to the plot or jokes of Singles, and hopefully one day it can/will become a big project.
Also, hopefully you'll get a chance to read Episodes 2 on through the Season Finale to see where the show is going.
Thank you again. I hope all is well. And Happy Memorial Day to you and family!
