Tinseltown Trouble: Seven Pilots

By Michael Lucid

Each of the seven dark comedy-thriller TV pilots in this collection, written by Michael Lucid, explores the recurring story motif of a struggling, ambitious and slightly delusional actress trying to pursue her career dreams in Hollywood, only to find herself getting pulled further into a terrifying, diabolical trap that threatens to ensnare and/or kill both her and everyone around her.

In "L.A. Cult," actress Heather Fox has to rescue her best friend Jess from a seemingly harmless improv theater-school, which turns out to be a sinister cult with a shadowy leader named Bruce who demands human sacrifices.

In "The Sub," frustrated actress Penny Gardner moves back from L.A. to her small, rural hometown of Salmon Springs, Ohio, where she takes a job as a substitute teacher at her old high school, and tries to recover from her soul-crushing struggles in Hollywood. But she's shocked to then have to help her new students escape from a terrifying masked serial killer, who'd also stalked Penny when she'd been a teen there 20 years ago.

In "Pandemic Pizza," after a horrific vampire pandemic sweeps across the globe, L.A. actress and pizzeria cashier Julie O'Grady is still determined to chase her Hollywood dreams -- even if it means auditioning for a dumb TikTok channel in a vampire-infested party house.

In "Doomsday Hotel and Casino," when middle-aged actress Gail Price and her best friend Terrie visit a cheesy SoCal hotel-casino, they're soon under siege by a horde of ravenous zombies. But that won't stop Gail from searching for a big casting director who's somewhere in the building.

In "Murder Maze Michelle," struggling L.A. actress Michelle Samson goes to audition for a mysterious new reality TV show, but she then finds herself trapped in a diabolical death game with a group of other players in an old, abandoned movie studio. And her closest ally in this bizarre murder maze is her shady but charming ex-best friend Magenta.

In "Roommate Trouble," barely employed L.A. actress Mars is desperate for a place to stay, so she crashes with her high-strung FBI agent friend Jen. But Mars soon learns, to her horror, that Jen's currently hunting down a sinister serial killer, and Jen's "roommate" Lydia is a brilliant psychopath helping Jen crack the case. And to make matters worse -- they now plan to use Mars as bait to catch the killer.

And in "Girl of the Year," relentlessly ambitious L.A. actress Margie is thrilled to be hired for a very unusual acting job -- she has to impersonate the famously reclusive best-selling author "Sandra M." at a lavish Hollywood party. But when the real Sandra turns up murdered, and Margie now discovers she's in grave danger, as well, she must continue publicly pretending to be Sandra, the literary "it" girl of the year, while desperately fighting to stay alive.

These seven pilots each humorously and suspensefully explore the severely unstable, unfair and often predatory entertainment world in L.A. and beyond, always through the eyes of a starry-eyed woman who refuses to let anything stand in the way of her dreams, including mayhem, murder and bloodthirsty vampires.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0DNFYLCHM
• ISBN13: 9798338901250
• Release Date: November 2024
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 402 Pages
• Weight: 2.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 8.5" x 11.0"