In preparation for Script Frenzy, I decided to read over a few scripts as recommended on the TV writing intro page. I'd read film scripts before but not TV shows, so I decided to pick one of my favorite and, in my opinion one of (if not) the best written sitcoms: Arrested Development.

My issue with this is that that script was under 50 pages long (39 to be precise) for a 20 minute episode. My aim is to write a 30 minute pilot, but surely 100 pages is too much? Won't I end up with something far too long and harder to finish?

Or am I just being stupid? Is it simply a case of formatting? Should I just make the text bigger and forget about it?

How is everyone else approaching it? Be kind, I'm new to this.

Generally in TV format, people doing Frenzy will write two scripts. Either two episodes for a single TV show or episodes for two different shows. Yes, 100 would be way too long for a sitcom script.

If you did a "special hour long season premiere" episode, 100 pages wouldn't be too bad. But for a regular half hour episode, it's definitely way too much. The "rule" is a page per minute, but it's a little different for TV because there's so much dialogue. So maybe a page and half to two pages (depending on how dialogue-heavy it is) per minute of screen time.