The Original Yellowjackets Pitch Has Some Major Differences

I go wild for television series bibles. These are the mini-books that lay out what a show is, who the characters are, and which guide the writers as they take us on a journey with those characters. It's especially fascinating to comb over what changed and try to suss out why.

"Yellowjackets" is no exception. As the popular Showtime horror-mystery series closes out its third season, the show has come a long way from series creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson's original pitch deck. That pitch was cited in 2021 as an example of how to sell a show correctly, and has made the usual rounds on social media.

The basics of the story we know are there in those nine pages. A high school girls soccer team is on a flight to Nationals when the plane crashes in the Wilderness. They're left stranded in the wild for almost two years before rescue comes. When it does, the few survivors refuse to talk about what happened, even though the public (rightly) suspects they engaged in cannibalism to survive. 25 years later, some of those survivors reconnect and confront their past. 

The details of this story are quite different from what was made, though. In the original pitch, the Yellowjackets hail from Michigan, not the fictional north New Jersey suburb Wiskayok. Their flight was also taking them to New Hampshire, not Seattle; would they be lost in rural New England instead of British Columbia?

The cover of the pitch is styled as a 1975 yearbook for Dearborn High School. Yes, 1975, because in this pitch, the two timelines in "Yellowjackets" would be 1975 and the early 2000s. As the pitch notes, Title IX (barring sex-based discrimination in education funding, including sports) passed in 1972. Setting a show about a girl's soccer team close to that year would tie the series to real history.

Of course, "Yellowjackets" moved both timetables forward by 20 years. Lyle and Nickerson explained why in a 2021 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. One, a single period piece is expensive enough, let alone two-for-one. Two, Lyle and Nickerson themselves were teenagers in the '90s, so that would tie the setting and characters closer to them (as would, presumably, moving the Yellowjackets' home to New Jersey, where they both grew up).

I agree this was a good call; the '90s soundtrack has become integral to the identity of "Yellowjackets" as a show, and it's a big part of why I enjoy it. Were the rest of the changes all the right move as well?

The pitch includes concise character bios that continue the yearbook motif. (They're labeled "Class of '75" and "Dearborn Faculty.") The bios, in turn, feature images of famous actors in their younger years, but keep in mind: These are there to convey the vibe of the characters, as opposed to signaling these actors were necessarily ever intended for these parts.

Of the main Yellowjackets, punk with a heart of gold Natalie Scatorccio (Sophie Thatcher and Juliette Lewis) changed the least from the pitch to the show:

"Equal parts Lita Ford, Burt Reynolds, and Mia Hamm, Natalie joined the team as part of a plea bargain to avoid expulsion for — well, nobody's sure what, exactly, but that doesn't stop the rumor mill from guessing. A natural on the field, Natalie plays with the throttle wide open. Which is pretty much the same way she approaches life. Strangely, or maybe predictably, it's the renegade whose value system remains the most stable when things start to go to s**t; as Natalie can attest, sometimes not wanting to be a leader is the best way to get others to follow."

The only difference is that backstory about joining the team. That hasn't come up in the show, but it doesn't sound out of character for the Natalie we've now spent three seasons following. (Given the change to the '90s and Natalie's resultant grunge look, you can also amend that Lita Ford name-drop to Kathleen Hanna.) 

Jackie's (Ella Purnell) surname is given as "Heller" in the pitch, instead of the final "Taylor." Still, the essence of her arc is already there:

"Jackie is admired both on and off the field, as much for her easygoing nature as her effortless girl-next-door look. In the aftermath of the crash, the rest of the team instinctively look to her as their de facto leader. However, Jackie's sheltered life leaves her ill-equipped, both physically and mentally, to handle the life-or-death situation at hand. As her insecurities grow, Jackie's ability to maintain control over the group slowly deteriorates, eventually leading to a messy breakdown."

Shauna Sheridan is Jackie's best friend, who lives in her shadow and harbors a friendship-destroying secret (presumably still sleeping with Jackie's boyfriend). Yet she's also described as "by nature a peacekeeper." Shauna Sadecki, née Shipman (Sophie Nélisse and Melanie Lynskey) is anything but.

Van's (Liv Hewson and Lauren Ambrose) romance with Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown and Tawny Cypress) seems to be a one-sided crush, at least at first. Misty's (Samantha Hanratty and Christina Ricci) personality is about 95% there, but the girls would discover that she destroyed the plane transponder much earlier. The closeted Coach Ben Scott (Steven Krueger) would be fending off multiple infatuated girls, not just Misty. The team coach's son is a single character, 13-year-old Cody, who was split into two characters, Travis (Kevin Alves and Andres Soto) and Javi (Luciano Leroux).

Some characters, like Laura Lee (Jane Widdop), Mari (Alexa Barajas), and Melissa (Jenna Burgess and Hilary Swank), are not in the pitch doc. Conversely, there are two dropped characters: Yumi Heineken, a Japanese immigrant and a teenage rebel, and Cat Wheeler, another faculty chaperone.

The biggest character change was undoubtedly to Lottie (Courtney Eaton and Simone Kessell). She is described as a Type-A striver, not a mentally ill girl who becomes a prophet in the Wilderness. It seems that Taissa absorbed Lottie's original characterization, because Tai in the pitch is described as shyer and more unsure of herself.

The alternating timeline structure of "Yellowjackets" is an integral, and sometimes frustrating, part of the show. The creators originally had a different vision for how the adult timeline would play out. Rather than a 50/50 split from the beginning, it would be a framing device that became something more.

Similar to "True Detective" season 1, the series would feature five surviving Yellowjackets being interviewed for a documentary. The world of the future would slowly expand in scope (again, much like "True Detective"), showing the survivors' private lives. Season 1 would end with a detective showing up at a Yellowjacket's doorstep, saying one of the other survivors is dead.

Obviously, the show ditched the documentary angle and got right to the murder mystery. The teen timeline sounds closer to the final product ... or does it? Reading the pitch doc, something stood out to me: there's no hint of anything supernatural in the Wilderness. It's said the girls will become cannibals, but not neo-Pagan cultists. The Wilderness is described as "an eerie, majestic descent into hell" and "a place where survival must be won," but there's no mention of the girls coming to believe It is something more. Yet, at the same time, I see how the "Yellowjackets" team came to that part of the story.

"Yellowjackets" is an updated "Lord of the Flies," showing children stranded away from civilization who build their own, brutal one. Religion is a building block of civilization, so why wouldn't the girls create one out there to justify their actions? And given their extremely fragile mental health, how would they ever be able to tell if what they experienced was a delusion or a higher power? "Madness is something rare in the individual — but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule," the pitch doc states, citing Friedrich Nietzsche.

The other main inspiration for the show is Peter Jackson's 1994 feature "Heavenly Creatures" (which was, incidentally, Lynskey's breakout film). Based on a real New Zealand murder case, that movie features two teenage girls — Juliet (Kate Winslet) and Pauline (Lynskey) — who retreat into a dreamland. They ultimately kill Pauline's mother to maintain their codependency and fantasy. Instead, the violence shatters the veneer they put over their eyes. In "Heavenly Creatures," the girls' delusions become as real to them as reality itself, and the film asks whether reality even matters more than belief. "Yellowjackets" extends that feeling of ambiguity about what's real and what isn't to its own audience.

Now, I'd bet the nine available pages probably aren't the entire pitch deck. They were published in 2021, when "Yellowjackets" season 1 debuted. The eighth page pointedly cuts off before spilling any details about season 2, and we know that Lyle and Nickerson went in with a five season plan for "Yellowjackets."

Despite the changes, the core story and themes that "Yellowjackets" has been telling are already present in this pitch deck. Reading it, you want to see this story play out, and I'm so thankful that we have — differences and all.

"Yellowjackets" is streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime.