Missing - begins filming its ten episode first season in May

Generally, pilots are far more expensive to make on a per-minute basis than the series they're designed to sell, and most have one or two set pieces that are unusually costly and complex for a TV budget.

In CW pilot "Awakening," the killer scene is a huge rave party in rural New Jersey in which the show's race of sexy zombies-who-live-among-us let loose like hipster cannibals.
The money and effort expended on showcase scenes such as these can seem like a big waste if a pilot doesn't get picked up, which why networks sometimes go straight to series, as ABC is doing with its new globe-trotting show "Missing," starring Ashley Judd, which is scheduled to begin shooting its full-season, 10-episode order in the Czech Republic, Croatia and Istanbul in May.

"To fly over there and set everything up and make a pilot and come back, it would've cost half the budget of the entire season," says "Missing" creator/executive producer Gregory Poirier.



Source & full article @ Variety