backdoor pilot
n.— «The episode will serve as what is known as a “backdoor pilot” for the spinoff, which would be exec-produced by “Grey’s” creator Shonda Rhimes.» —“A special delivery on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’: It’s a pilot” by Lisa de Morae Los Angeles Times Feb. 23, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Many of us struggled with the Old English poem “Beowulf” in high school. But what if you could actually hear “Beowulf” in the English of today? There’s a new translation by Maria Dahvana Headley that uses contemporary...
A Kentucky listener says her father often prefaced statements with the phrase I tell you what’s the truth. This regionalism appears in the Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English (Bookshop|Amazon). A shorter version is I’ll tell you...