TV pilots, a big employer in L.A., are in limbo. How the coronavirus could change the industry

This year’s batch of TV pilots included some ominous names: “Triage,” “Wreckage” and “Housebroken.” Now, those show titles also describe network TV’s pilot season, which has been upended by the coronavirus outbreak. “I suspect that we’ll look back on this event and say: ‘That was the tipping point.’” — Producer Warren Littlefield Carla Banks Waddles, a writer and producer of “Good Girls” on NBC, was two weeks away from shooting a pilot she wrote for NBC called “At that Age,” which explores an African American family’s legacy in Harlem. For example, in this year’s crop of pilots are at least eight straight-to-series orders, including a proposed ABC drama, “The Big Sky,” a Montana detective mystery from producer David E. Kelley. “Shows that were ‘on the bubble’ might get renewed,” said veteran producer Gail Katz, who helped make “The Perfect Storm,” and “Air Force One.” “Networks will consider them a safer bet because they already have a cast, crew and a writers’ room assembled — and an audience.” Katz has experience with catastrophic events: She was a producer on the 1995 movie “Outbreak,” starring Dustin Hoffman and Morgan Freeman, about a rapidly spreading deadly virus.