While both current ABC comedy pilots may have finished filming their respective pilot presentations in front of a studio audience over the last week or two, there’s some key concept art for the opening sequence/intro finally being shown into the world of IMDB a day or two ago for one of ABC’s failed drama pilots from early last year called Judgement. It was a legal drama being made by Joey Falco who ran the reboot of Charmed from 2018 with actress Sarah Shahi as the main cast leader of this project in the form of her character Mia Bahari. You can tell by the title sequence of Sarah wondering with her eyes wide open on top of backdrops through the town of Washington DC (fictional setting there as the pilot was filmed in Atlanta, Georgia) as well as a series of wording such as “In the Supreme Court of the United States” & “United States Court of America” before you can finally see such a killer logo towards the end there in the wording called Judgement. That’s all to tell by its cover as the full pilot show access is only limited to cast members and behind the scenes staff involved unfortunately, not even going to a certain studio building would help to watch this pilot in-person either unless you’re really lucky. It’s only appropriate when showing off a piece of work like a part of your resume/CV as if you continue to seek your next opportunity.
It would’ve been a great promo for the public to see as if Judgement did make it into a series order but then the writers and later actors’ strikes have delayed pretty much everything for most of last year from April to October-November. Even if there wasn’t any revolt from people working behind the scenes in the scripted TV business, Judgement wouldn’t be given an advantage anyway when trying to get ahead of others like The Good Lawyer (also eventually being overlooked because the Strikes held them up for far too long). Yes, I understand about the split timelines part but then it’s 100% just about Mia whose professional reputation was on the line after being nominated for a seat in the Supreme Court off the back of her poor personal and love life other than what she did 15 years ago (was last year in fictional terms to its present day 2038).
So having an excellent line-up of cast members featuring team leader Shahi wasn’t bad alongside the key production art where the ABC management gave them some good grades which was largely well received, it’s just the plot when applying it in a pilot presentation from a year-long development script and its planned storyboards was something they didn’t like and therefore, Judgement didn’t make it at the end of the day. Although Judgement was given the chance to being given a lifeline by other networks following its original rejection by ABC but then these lifelines very rarely succeed unlike this one here. It’s not easy to make TV by first writing your story idea via a script, work with them for a year to make changes in the hope of making this script suitable for TV if you’re lucky, then assemble a cast and a location to film for a certain period of time hoping for the best by sending a copy back upstairs before you can finally go all in for the big screen if accepted – that’s life for y’all.
The good news is that the so-called “Pilot Season” most likely a thing of the past where it’s a bit like a knockout contest during February-March ahead of its final selections for the networks to showcase its annual May upfronts but it seems filming pilots where some go and some being eliminated and then archived in a vault or even all go and all not go isn’t changing anytime soon for now except FOX who nearly relies on straight-to-series orders off development scripts. I guess networks would want to double check everything first depending on axed shows and how these pilots would best fit their audience if they do make it as this kind of method have worked best for them across Fall and Mid-Season cycles in recent years.
Other than that, you never know when you will be able to watch an episode of Judgement one day if you’re lucky but 99.9% impossible. Judgement was produced by 20th Television alongside its Disney subsidiary studio ABC Signature and The Detective Agency as you can see it for yourself online at anytime on the pilot’s IMDB page here. And if you’re a huge fan of watching past pilots that never made into TV, I recommend you follow The Media Garage on both YouTube and Patreon. The same goes with JQ’s YouTube Channel here where they had tons of closing credit clips from various unaired TV pilots.
