ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
Half-hour dramedy series – 3 season arc

When promising but self-destructive screenwriter Jack Maguire flames out of New York, crawls back to his mom’s house in Northern California, and finally bolts for Los Angeles, he thinks he’s chasing a career. What he’s really chasing is a new addiction. The pilot follows Jack from rehab and minimum-wage purgatory to a manic Hollywood lot job with a volatile C-list star, a dead father who may or may not be in his head, and a city that keeps asking the same question: what are you willing to trade for a shot at mattering?

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT 101

Across three seasons, the show tracks Jack’s ascent from hungover assistant to power player as his alcoholism quietly gives way to something more seductive: control. Each season widens his orbit—from broke couch-surfer and grief case, to insider learning to pull levers, to a man who’s finally “made it” and can’t stop tightening his grip. The series treats addiction and ambition as parallel compulsions running on the same wiring: first the bottle, then the town, then the people in it.

Tone & format: A half-hour, character-driven dramedy that starts lean and grows more expansive and serialized as Jack rises, keeping the comedy sharp while the moral cost deepens. Think Entourage’s inside-baseball Hollywood, colliding head-on with the slow corruption of Breaking Bad and the dark, self-aware bite of Barry.

© 2025 Jack Chase. “Room for Improvement” and all related characters and story elements. All rights reserved.
Unproduced original television pilot script. No portion may be reproduced, distributed, or performed without the author’s written permission.