07-14-2022, 12:26 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-14-2022, 12:29 PM by FaceInTheCrowd.)
I don't know if the length of series option is set in law or is just industry practice. The articles about Star Trek mention an option for five seasons, which in the 60s would have been a pretty good run.
I forget which article it was in, but apparently Nimoy was actually passing on other roles as he waited to receive the contract offer for the second pilot. Based on that, my presumption is that if you signed a pilot+series contract it only covered one pilot and if that pilot didn't sell, it ended your series commitment and freed you to sign on to other roles. I wonder if that's still the case, because even though we typically see first episodes of new series titled "pilot," today's series don't all seem to go through that process.
I forget which article it was in, but apparently Nimoy was actually passing on other roles as he waited to receive the contract offer for the second pilot. Based on that, my presumption is that if you signed a pilot+series contract it only covered one pilot and if that pilot didn't sell, it ended your series commitment and freed you to sign on to other roles. I wonder if that's still the case, because even though we typically see first episodes of new series titled "pilot," today's series don't all seem to go through that process.