The TV Writer Spec Episode Database

Update 9/25/23: Added spec by Carlos Cisco.

Update 5/3/22: Added spec by Jeff Lowell.

Update 2/15/20: Added specs by Jose Molina.

Update 9/17/19: Added specs by Diane Ademu-John, Ian MacIntyre, Matt Okumura, Jeane Wong.

Update 9/10/19: Added specs by Julie Plec, Akela Cooper, Helen Shang, Brig Munoz-Liebowitz, David Iserson, Brandon Margolis & Brandon Sonnier.

Update 9/9/19: Added specs by Aaron Ginsburg & Wade McIntyre, Sarah Watson, and Gillian Horvath.

About a year ago, I started a Twitter conversation with pro writers about the spec episodes that got them staffed or noticed for the first time. The result was a lot of amusing answers (Julie Plec wrote a BUFFY!) and informative (many people wrote SEVERAL specs until they finally broke in.)

This past weekend, a similar topic came up again on Twitter, as a debate sparked if writers should still do spec episodes instead of focusing on original pilots. Many writers will tell you that speccing an existing show will teach you the valuable skill of mimicry, which is essential to succeeding as a staff writer.

This time, there was also real conversation about creating an archive of the pro spec episodes. To my surprise a lot of very successful and established writers were willing to make their earliest spec episodes available. Many seemed tickled by sharing these with a wider audience and so I've volunteered to curate this database.

If you're a pro writer and you want your spec to join this archive, email me at zuulthereader at gmail and I will be happy to add you to the list along with as many of your old specs as you wish to submit. If you want to give a little context for those specs, please do.

To keep everything together, I'll make all updates on this post, listing the specs alphabetically by the writer's last name. It's my hope to make this a useful resource for emerging writers who have an interest in seeing how writers they admire got started by writing for other shows.

I'm also putting my money where my mouth is. I've already made available my spec for an alternate season 3 premiere of 13 Reasons Why (full story on that here), but for the first time, I'm posting my spec episode of Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23. My earlier post on that spec is here.

Without further ado, here's the TV Writer Spec Episode Database:

Diane Ademu-John (Empire, The Originals) - Deadwood

Angelina Burnett (Halt and Catch Fire, Genius) - Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

• "The one door I remember this opening for me was a meeting with the showrunner for New Amsterdam (not the one now, the one from a long time ago). He thought it was really funny, and that I should try to get it to Sorkin (I never did). And though I didn't get the staff writer gig, he did hire me as his assistant with a possibility of a freelance. Then the strike happened half way through the season so... No freelance. I got staffed right after the strike, but I can't remember which script got me that meeting. Might have been this one?" 

Carlos Cisco (Star Trek: Discovery) - Parks & Recreation

• "This is the second spec I ever wrote (first was Justified and I can't seem to find the PDF), and my only true foray into straight comedy. It seemed to work since it got me in the NHMC TV writers fellowship where I promptly shifted to drama and foolishly wrote a Walking Dead spec that was rendered irrelevant 2 weeks after I finished because they killed Rick's wife! Last time I ever specced heavily serialized shows!" 

Akela Cooper (Luke Cage, American Horror Story) - Supernatural

Justin Doble (The Lord of the Rings, Stranger Things) - Justified, Parenthood

• "The PARENTHOOD got me into the Warner Brothers Writers' Workshop and the JUSTIFIED I wrote in the workshop and it got me my first staff job on FRINGE." 

Jay Faerber (Supergirl, Zoo)- Burn Notice

• "This is what got me into the WB program back in 2010." 

Glenn Farrington (Roswell, New Mexico) - The Big Bang Theory, Modern Family

• "They both were also the ones that got me into the running for the ABC writer’s program."
  

Matthew Federman & Stephen Scaia (Blood & Treasure, Limitless) - The West Wing

• "For context, [we] were PAs on The West Wing and decided to write one together, inspired by a news article. It began our writing partnership and launched our career. So always read the news, kids!"

Aaron Ginsburg & Wade McIntyre (New Amsterdam, The 100) - The Office, Rescue Me

• "Our The Office got us into the WB writing program. Our Rescue Me helped get us our first agent." 

Marc Guggenheim (Carnival Row, Arrow) - The West Wing

• "[This spec] got me all my first gigs."

Joe Henderson (Lucifer, 11.22.63) - Dexter, The O.C.

Gillian Horvath (Beauty and the Beast, Primeval: New World) - Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Quantum Leap (More info available on Gillian's site here.)

• "My QUANTUM LEAP was my third spec. It got me my first agent and got read at Universal, leading to a NORTHERN EXPOSURE that I sprinted to finish when the QL guys wouldn't read my QL. That got me a freelance QL. My next, a BUFFY, was still getting me jobs 10 years after cancellation."

David Iserson (Mozart in the Jungle, Mr. Robot) - Seinfeld

• "Please note that the spec I submitted was something I wrote my Junior year of high school and I haven't touched it since except to format it."

Niceole Levy (Cloak and Dagger, Shades of Blue) - The Closer, The Good Wife

• "'The Closer' got me into the CBS program. I wrote my 'Good Wife' while in the program, and it got me a ton of meetings." 

Jeff Lowell (Spin City, Manhattan Love Story) - The Larry Sanders Show

Ian MacIntyre (Degrassi: Next Class, Inspector Gadget) - Parks and Recreation.

• "[My] Parks & Rec spec got me my first full-season staffing job on Degrassi: Next Class (Netflix). 
  

P. J. Marino (Captain Tsunami's Army) - The Simpsons

• "I wrote this Simpsons spec back in 2002. It was only the second script I'd ever written (I'd also written an original pilot). It won 2nd Place in the Scriptapalooza contest, and got me a meeting w/ a big literary manager. She gave me a huge confidence boost to continue. I'm still not WGA, but this year I got my first feature produced, with two other features in negotiations for options." 

Brandon Margolis & Brandon Sonnier (LA's Finest, The Blacklist) - Common Law 

Jose Molina (Agent Carter, Firefly) - The X-Files, Law & Order

Brig Munoz-Liebowitz (Abby's, Brooklyn Nine-Nine) - Girls 

Matt Okumura (Blood & Treasure) - The Handmaid's Tale.

Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries, Legacies) - Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Thomas Reyes (The Great North) - Silicon Valley

• "The Silicon Valley spec got me into the Warner Bros Writers Workshop. It was also a semifinalist at the Austin Film Festival. I still use it as a sample (it got me showrunner meetings this staffing season)."

Barry Schkolnick (In Plain Sight, The Good Wife) - The Sopranos

• "Some context: I wrote this script because I fell in love with the show from the start and was in-between gigs and needed a new piece of material to show. I also wanted to break away from the purely procedural style of Law & Order which had come to define me in the marketplace. It led pretty quickly to a lot of meetings and then a co-producer gig on Peter Berg’s “Wonderland” (short-lived medical drama about Bellevue mental hospital on ABC). This was also the last spec I wrote, as I started writing original pilots on assignments within a short period. Since then I only write originals on spec because, as you know, the marketplace for writing samples changed, and they can also be sold!" 

Brian Michael Scully (co-writer on THE MAKING OF STAR WARS EPISODE VIII and the writer of GENESIS) - Star Trek: Voyager

• "It was the third I wrote and submitted [to the Star Trek "open spec" program.] The rules were you could only submit two if you had no reps. When my first two were rejected ("Pseudo" and "Chimera"), I submitted this third spec under the name Mike Scully and used my grandmother's address. As Al Bundy once said, "It's only cheating if you get caught." Five days after I started writing it, "Mortal Coil" aired and it was almost identical to the themes I think I was going for (I say I think because I wrote this over 21 years ago, who the hell knows what I was thinking then). I was too stubborn to rebreak and write from a different angle. So I just moved forward and sent in anyway. To this day, I still cannot fathom how that show read this script and called me to pitch. I really don't."

Helen Shang (Lord of the Rings, 13 Reasons Why) The Big Bang Theory, Once Upon a Time

Dan Steele (Faking It, Hart of Dixie) - How I Met Your Mother

Sarah Watson (The Bold Type, Parenthood) - Gilmore Girls

• "This got me staffed onto: Lipstick Jungle, The Middleman, And Parenthood! I don't think there's a title page on it and I can't for the life of me remember what year I wrote it. I think I called it 'The Bell Jar Jar Binks.'"

Jeane Wong (Arrow) - iZombie

• "Got me into wotv and abc finalist. Opened development/selling stuff for me."

Bonus: I'll also be tracking the "infamous" gimmick spec episodes that have gained notoriety over the years. If you know of one worthy of inclusion, let me know and I'll take a look at it.

SEINFELD  - "The Twin Towers" (9/11 episode) by Billy Domineau