Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines. Pilot season has officially begun.

Each year we hear about how the TV schedule is no longer locked into its usual fall-centered seasonal routine (a ritual some sources believe was originally driven by car manufacturers who wanted ad campaigns for their new models to ride shotgun with the fall season). In recent years, the year-round popularity of reality TV and the proliferation of original series on cable netlets has lent some credence to this notion. And after last fall’s new-show bloodbath, perhaps networks would be wise to consider another way of doing business.

On the other hand, this so-called trend--which some have imagined would eventually melt down the hard-and-fast shape of the January-to-April pilot season--is something industry sources have been telling me about since I began covering the talent biz at Back Stage West in the early 1990s. And there was no rerun-killing Survivor in those days.

Bottom line, the loosening up of the pilot season gridlock just hasn’t happened. Networks still scramble and compete for talent while agents and actors angle for one of the short-lived jobs that may, just may, turn into a career with great hours and financial security to spare. And they all still do it in that compressed four-month scrimmage, with the deadline of the May “upfront” presentations to Madison Avenue suits.

Everybody Loves Raymond casting director Lisa Miller Katz could safely be called a veteran of the pilot-season crunch. Before casting CBS’ hit comedy, she cast Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Space: Above and Beyond—and since then she’s cast King of Queens (pilot and first two seasons), According to Jim (just the pilot, she’s quick to emphasize), and two versions of pilots for NBC’s Scott Foley vehicle AUSA (one on film, the other a half-hour sitcom). She’s not sure whether reports of Raymond’s death after eight seasons are exaggerated, but to be on the safe side she plans to take on a few pilots this season. And she’s bracing herself for pilot season’s unique annual escalation of the industry’s usual cutthroat competition and anxiety.

I met with Miller Katz recently to interview her for a book I’m writing about how certain popular shows and films were cast, starting with the original Breakdowns and talking through the process with the CDs and their reps. While many of her stories and insights apply specifically to casting the Raymond pilot (she’s kept her original notes and wish lists from the sessions in March and April of 1996), her perspective on pilot season is remarkably timely for this week’s column.

One startling observation arose from her perusal of the original Raymond Breakdown. “The writers at Breakdown are great,” she raved, reading incisive descriptions of the by-now-familiar lead characters of Debra, Robert, Frank, and Marie (Ray Romano was of course already cast). “They’re so good at summarizing simply. Some [casting directors] do like to write their own breakdowns; I like to let these people do their jobs. They’re very good at it.”

On the other hand, she said, “I don’t think agents read Breakdowns. I think agents read the first two lines, and maybe the last line.” She referred to essentials in the original Debra Breakdown: “…in her early to mid-30s… knockout…. Mother of three… married… series regular.” An agent submitting for that description would have a pretty wide range to submit from—and Miller Katz sees them all. But wouldn’t it make her job easier if people read a little something about Debra’s personality, class, character arc? Maybe, but, said Miller Katz, “I think agents pull every photo for anyone who age-wise is somewhat appropriate, and every once in a while they’ll throw in people who are ethnically different than was specified. I just think it’s human nature.”

She looked at the date of the original Raymond Breakdown, Mar. 11, 1996.

“This came out dead in the middle of the craziest time of pilot season, and I think agents were at their office probably till 11 o’clock the night before, and probably got in at the crack of dawn, and they’re like, ‘Uh, Frank, 60ish—here’s our guys who are 60ish. And here’s some who are 50s and here’s some who are 70s.’ Sometimes they don’t pay attention to the age. I can say she’s 30s; I’ll get a woman who’s 21, I’ll get a woman who’s 47. ‘But she can play it!’ I’m not saying agents are anything less than talented professionals in the entertainment industry. But the truth of the matter is, if you polled 10 of them, honestly—and I’m not talking about Breakdowns for episodic, where it’s a two-line description—I think if you said, do you honestly [read these]? They’d say no.”

Indeed, receiving an inordinate number of submissions—appropriate and otherwise—is another fact of pilot season that drives Miller Katz and her peers a little batty. Pilot season has become such a mythical feeding frenzy that agents and actors send tapes from Dallas, Mexico City, Florida. And that doesn’t even count the tapes L.A. casting directors are sent by their official New York counterparts—a reality of casting Miller Katz doesn’t particularly enjoy.

“Actors need to be in L.A. for pilot season,” she said, explaining that the few exceptional stories of actors cast from New York calls only prove the rule.

Not that being in L.A. improves actors’ chances all that much. “The truth of the matter is,” said Miller Katz, “that when I have the hi-Ray-here’s-your-pizza role to cast, I get 600 pictures, and one person gets the job. When you sit and think about the numbers, it’s paralyzing.”

Paradoxically, though, the numbers cut both ways. There’s always too much talent in L.A.—but, in the competitive, high-stakes realm of pilot-season casting, there seems to be not enough talent. Actors who are right for series regular roles, and can get the approval of not only each show’s producers but the network suits above them, turn out to be relatively scarce, and are in high demand. While a throng of agents and actors chase the jobs, a handful of stressed-out network creatives chase the hot actors and actresses. “The good list is short,” is how Miller Katz put it. And it’s a list every network is checking twice: She recalled how Brad Garrett, the tall, deep-voiced sad sack who plays Ray Romano’s loser brother Robert, had to be rushed through the network approval process at CBS to avoid losing him to a pilot-plus-six opportunity for Fox.

“That’s the thing,” said Miller Katz. “All these people are reading for every other show out there, and they want jobs. It’s about the first thing that comes along. That’s why so many people are so many frustrated with pilot season as it exists as we know it. Networks are looking for show runners, there’s a limited number of those guys; networks are looking for writers, and there’s a limited number of talented writers. It’s this clamoring. Then there are some networks who hate to lose to other networks; it’s like, ‘What, you’d rather do an NBC thing?’ You don’t want to beg an actor. What can you do?

“I cast both versions of the pilot of AUSA that Scott Foley did two years ago for NBC. In the pilot there was a character, an attorney who was either Hispanic or African-American, they hadn’t decided, and one of the people who came in was Adam Rodriguez. We really liked him and we wanted to test him, but he got an opportunity to test for CSI: Miami. It’s like, ‘Gee, should I test for a pilot at NBC, or a 22-on-the-air for what would become the biggest show?’ There’s nothing you can do, and rightly so; you can’t compete with that. You just go, ‘Good luck, Adam.’ He’s a TV star now.”

So amid this frenzy of submissions, holding deals, and network directives, how does a good show ever get cast well?

“Look, it’s luck,” said Miller Katz. “Everybody Loves Raymond is lightning in a bottle. It starts with the word on the page; this pilot script was hysterically funny. And so when the material’s good, good people are interested.

“Getting a pilot made is a miracle in and of itself. All you can think of is, Let’s just get this pilot made, and hope no one gets fired during the 10 days of production, and please God, let’s make it to schedule.  Getting that pilot picked up to air is a miracle in and of itself. Looking back now [on Raymond], it feels like a lifetime ago. We were on Fridays at 8:30 on CBS, the shittiest timeslot in the history of television. In what world is this show still on the air? It’s just a miracle. We were doing badly, no one watched us, no one knew who we were. We followed Dave’s World. But [CBS head] Les [Moonves] said, ‘I kinda like this show,’ and moved us around and put us on Monday night. You think about the odds, it’s staggering.”

Miller Katz may protest too much. Certainly her asssets as a casting director—which in pilot season include not only taste and contacts but the fortitude and clarity of a traffic cop—had something to do with putting together a TV classic.

“It’s been great,” she said. “Everyone here is great; everybody here has been here since the beginning. No one wants to leave. If this is the end, I’ll really be sad.”

And the best way for a hard-driving industry pro to deal with this kind of grief? Plunge into casting another pilot or two, and cross your fingers that it will go.

It turns out that actors aren’t the only ones who go into pilot season full of hope against the odds.