Backdoor pilots are standalone episodes of regular television that introduces new characters in the hopes of spinning them off onto their own show. Gossip Girl attempted this with their 80s episode, The Nanny tried to make you care about the Chatterbox salon and One Day At A Time used their final episode to introduce Dwayne into a new setting.
All failed.
Fox's Bones introduced Walter Sherman (played by Geoff Stults) in a April episode and now hopes you follow him to The Finder, which co-stars Michael Clarke Duncan as a pair of Miami's most successful locators of lost items. I caught up with Geoff earlier this week to find out how his show is different from Bones, what he's excited for you to see and why he's got Full House to thank for his career!
Insider.com: What was it like filming the backdoor pilot for The Finder?
Geoff Stults: That was such a weird experience – I kind of considered it Bones with a crossover episode with this show called The Finder that you just didn't know yet. It was weird for the first week and a half being down in Miami filming. It was the show within a show but really we were our own show, and then we came back to LA on the Bones set and it was like crashing at somebody's house [laughs]. I know we are born from them and are only on the air because of the success of Bones, but we are not Bones. We call them varsity and we're the JV team.
Insider: What is it about Walter that you are attracted to?
Geoff: He's smart, he thinks he's right half the time when he isn't – it's so much fun for me to get a chance to build a character who doesn't take himself too seriously. And that's what I’m trying to do with the character: entertain. That's my goal with this character and our goal with this show.
Insider: How do you feel the show does that?
Geoff: We're not solving dark murders, the hook is that they have fun – they find stuff in every episode, but it's about the ride. We screened the first episode with the cast yesterday, and I have this thing where I don’t watch anything until it airs. I remember being so excited to watch the first thing I was ever on, I ran to the TV because that's when we didn't have Tivos or anything. That's what I've done ever since – I like to watch my work when the rest of America does.
Insider: Do you remember that first job ever?
Geoff: It was an episode of Full House. I was an extra in a party scene. I got $75 for it, it was awesome. My next door neighbor in college was Andrea Barber, who played Kimmy Gibbler, she got a couple of us on the show and that's when I thought, "Maybe I should do this for a living." It was such a pipe dream but it's amazing how it worked out.
Geoff: What are you excited for fans to wsee with the show?
Geoff: I love is that we can go anywhere, do anything and find anything – there are lots of procedurals that are stuck in one place. Even Bones – you know they're going to find a set of bones every week and solve a crime. We have the most varied crimes: we help a boy find his father, I find a serial killer, I find some socks, I found little green men, a voodoo doll, I find lost record tracks for 50 Cent. It's all over the place, you'll never see it coming.
Insider: John Fogerty guest stars in the first episode and you just mentioned 50 Cent in an upcoming episode. Who is your dream guest star to find something for?
Geoff: There are so many! It's not going to happen because he's got his own show but I kind of think of The Finder as a quirky cross between Magnum P.I. and Fletch. So I would love to have Tom Selleck on the show, but he's got his own show. I grew up watching Magnum, and he's from Detroit like me. Then we could have Monica Bellucci, who I have a crush on. I need a make-out scene with her [laughs].
The Finder premieres tonight at 9 p.m. on Fox
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