Netflix’s history-making new series sneaks past the writers’ strike to finish shooting early and avoid picketers

In the grand scheme of the television industry, a prospective new series shooting a pilot episode in the hopes of being ordered to series is hardly an earth-shattering or revelatory development, but Little Sky nonetheless finds Netflix doing something the company has never done before.

Up until this point, the streaming service simply ordered entire seasons right off the bat, but in the case of the Samara Weaving-fronted comedy, Netflix has decided to head down the pilot route for the very first time ever. The story finds the scream queen’s news reporter on the hunt for the story of a lifetime, only to have it fall into her lap when the mayor of the titular town ends up disappearing without a trace.

In another fortunate twist that benefits Netflix and not many other people, Little Sky has also managed to complete shooting on its pilot without suffering in the face of the ongoing writers’ strike, per Deadline. Production was initially expected to roll on until next Tuesday, but the producers have instead decided there’s enough footage in the can to cobble a preview together.

The shoot went on with no call sheets and early call times to avoid picketers, too, while the various department heads were informed by instant message the midnight before cameras started rolling where they’d been filming, which does sound awfully surreptitious. Either way, it’s in the can, but it remains to be seen whether Netflix’s experimentation with pilots will end up with a full season order.