Favourite Pilot Episode of a TV Series

[RedDeadFred]

I was inspired to make this thread after watching the pilot of Justified on Netflix. I've seen a lot of great pilots (Breaking Bad, Dexter, The Shield) but for me, none were quite as good as the pilot of Justified. The writing was excellent and so was the acting. The main character is instantly awesome from the opening scene and it introduced a great villain (it doesn't look like he was killed so I hope he comes back). All in all, it was the best pilot I've ever seen.

So my question is: what is the best pilot episode you've ever seen? Feel free to tell me your worst as well (mine is probably Agents of Shield -not awful but it didn't make me excited for the show at all).

 

[Marter]

Jericho's pilot had me completely hooked from the first episode. Man, if only it could have maintained that greatness past the first season. I wish that show had more viewers.

 

[tippy2k2]

Jericho's pilot had me completely hooked from the first episode. Man, if only it could have maintained that greatness past the first season. I wish that show had more viewers.

Amen to that brother!

I freaking loved Jericho and was terribly disappointed in it's ever so short run. Such a cool concept...

OT:
The Shield
You already mentioned it but The Shield was a huge kick in the gut for me. A corrupt cop shows just how far he's willing to go for his guys and makes the ending of the series that much more powerful. A great show; I would be hard pressed to decide on a better show.

Flashpoint
I don't know if many have seen this show but the first episode is excellent for setting up what these guys have to deal with. The show is about the SRU (Canadian SWAT team in a nutshell) and just about everything in their job is established here. A hostage negotiation, a sniper's job, and a tough but quick decision in this single episode demonstrates what you're in for. The last season was just added to Netflix and I am biting into the first of these episodes now

 

[Uhura]

The pilot of Twin Peaks is amazing! It sets the mood perfectly and I was pretty much hooked after the first 5 minutes of the episode. My second favorite is the pilot for The X-Files. The main storyline is not that remarkable but it has a lot of good banter between Scully and Mulder. Otherwise I'm not really a pilot-person since most of my favorite shows have quite bad pilots/first seasons.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

Fairly new actually. Sleepy Hollow and Almost Human had some of the coolest pilots I had ever seen. Seriously some great stuff. I would also say The Walking Dead and Alcatrez if anyone remembers that.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I like Breaking Bad's pilot. The first few minutes of the show, despite using the cheap tactic of showing the ending of the episode first, was really interesting to me. Walt in his underwear and a gas mask driving the RV, two bodies and the destroyed methlab being tossed around in the back, and Jesse in a gas mask passed out in the passenger seat. The pilot in general was probably more action-packed than the entirety of Season 2 & 3, more using obscure chemistry methods to get a job done, less mucking around with subplots in the family for several episodes that don't matter at all.

 

[TheRiddler]

Sherlock's pilot was about as good as you could get. Introduced you to the characters, showed you the best possible adaptation of Sherlock Holmes as you could get, and had a chilling bad guy to boot.

 

[Dale Ware]

I'm going to go with the shield. That was what got me hooked, where most shows usually take a few episodes.

I guess thinking about it its just seeing something despicable, as that is how The first ep of Game of Thrones ends, and that was fairly compelling...

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I'd like to call attention to your avatar and mention [i/]Community[/i].

Say what you will about where the show went, but the pilot was incredible and hooked me instantly.

The thing is, I go to a community college and I was damn near on the floor from the dean's opening speech.

[i/]What is community college? Well, you've heard all kinds of things. You've heard it's "loser college" for remedial teens, 20-something dropouts, middle age divorcees, and old people keeping their minds active as they circle the drain of eternity.
That's what you've heard...
However,
I wish you luck!
[/i]

Not only do I know all of those people, but the writing was also fantastic throughout.

I need to watch that show beginning to end again now...

 

[TheRiddler]

I'd like to call attention to your avatar and mention [i/]Community[/i].

Say what you will about where the show went, but the pilot was incredible and hooked me instantly.

The thing is, I go to a community college and I was damn near on the floor from the dean's opening speech.

[i/]What is community college? Well, you've heard all kinds of things. You've heard it's "loser college" for remedial teens, 20-something dropouts, middle age divorcees, and old people keeping their minds active as they circle the drain of eternity.
That's what you've heard...
However,
I wish you luck!
[/i]

Not only do I know all of those people, but the writing was also fantastic throughout.

I need to watch that show beginning to end again now...

I'll second Community.
Mostly for this gem:

[i/]
"We are the only species on Earth that observe "Shark Week". Sharks don't even observe "Shark Week", but we do, for the same reason I can pick this pencil, tell you its name is Steve and go like this (breaks pencil) and part of you dies. Just a little bit on the inside because people can connect with anything. We can sympathize with a pencil, we can forgive a shark, and we can give Ben Affleck an academy award for Screenwriting.

People can find the good in just about anything but themselves. Look at me. It's clear to all of you that I am awesome but I could never admit that because that would make me an ass. But what I can do is see what makes Annie awesome. She's driven, we need driven people or the lights go out and the ice cream melts. And Pierce, we need guys like Pierce, this guy has wisdom to offer...

And Shirley, Shirley has earned our respect, not as a wife, not as a mother, but as a woman. And don't test her on that because that thing about the jukebox was waaay too specific to be improvised. And Troy- who cares if Troy thinks he's all that? Maybe he is, do you think astronauts go to the moon because they hate oxygen? No. They're trying to impress their high schools prom king. And Abed... Abed's a shaman. You ask him to pass the salt and he gives you a bowl of soup, because you know what? Soup is better. Abed is better. You are all better then you think you are, you're just designed not to believe it when you hear it from yourself."

[/i]
This scene was the first Winger speech, and it was gold.

 

[FPLOON]

Well, I remember when Nickelodeon showed every animated pilot from the first to the latest, at the time, during one of their New Years Day marathons and most of those pilots were pretty cool and showed why I liked watching them back then and still now... My favorite pilots were (if I remember correctly) Doug, Hey Arnold, Rocket Power, Invader Zim, and Spongebob Squarepants...

As far as best pilot, I can't think of one off the top of my head... Some that have already been mentioned, I'll admit, were pretty awesome shows... and I can barely remember episode pilots from Cartoon Network pre-Adventure Time, despite loving most of the shows that came out like Johnny Bravo, KND, Teen Titans, Billy and Mandy, and Ed, Edd, n' Eddy... (Honorable mention goes to Robot Jones, since not that many people knew he existed...)

Although, I'll never forget watching the pilot to The Boondocks with my mother and the both of us just cracking up, both realizing how awesome this show's going to be as the episodes went on...

So, yeah... Most of my favorite pilots are from animated series... with the exception of Lake Placid Turbo, which may or may not become another animated series on Cartoon Network... and it should, based on it's pilot alone... (So far, recently, that's been my favorite pilot... to a show that I hope gets to have a couple of episodes under its belt... with the original Adventure Time pilot taking my recent #3 spot... behind the Boondocks pilot...)

 

[Illesdan]

Best pilot for a drama: 'American Gothic'
Best pilot for a cartoon: 'Static Shock'
Best pilot for a comedy: 'Red Dwarf'

 

[Terminate421]

Archer definitely had one of the best pilots in history.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I'd like to call attention to your avatar and mention [i/]Community[/i].

Say what you will about where the show went, but the pilot was incredible and hooked me instantly.

The thing is, I go to a community college and I was damn near on the floor from the dean's opening speech.

[i/]What is community college? Well, you've heard all kinds of things. You've heard it's "loser college" for remedial teens, 20-something dropouts, middle age divorcees, and old people keeping their minds active as they circle the drain of eternity.
That's what you've heard...
However,
I wish you luck!
[/i]

Not only do I know all of those people, but the writing was also fantastic throughout.

I need to watch that show beginning to end again now...

I'll second Community.
Mostly for this gem:

[i/]
"We are the only species on Earth that observe "Shark Week". Sharks don't even observe "Shark Week", but we do, for the same reason I can pick this pencil, tell you its name is Steve and go like this (breaks pencil) and part of you dies. Just a little bit on the inside because people can connect with anything. We can sympathize with a pencil, we can forgive a shark, and we can give Ben Affleck an academy award for Screenwriting.

People can find the good in just about anything but themselves. Look at me. It's clear to all of you that I am awesome but I could never admit that because that would make me an ass. But what I can do is see what makes Annie awesome. She's driven, we need driven people or the lights go out and the ice cream melts. And Pierce, we need guys like Pierce, this guy has wisdom to offer...

And Shirley, Shirley has earned our respect, not as a wife, not as a mother, but as a woman. And don't test her on that because that thing about the jukebox was waaay too specific to be improvised. And Troy- who cares if Troy thinks he's all that? Maybe he is, do you think astronauts go to the moon because they hate oxygen? No. They're trying to impress their high schools prom king. And Abed... Abed's a shaman. You ask him to pass the salt and he gives you a bowl of soup, because you know what? Soup is better. Abed is better. You are all better then you think you are, you're just designed not to believe it when you hear it from yourself."

[/i]
This scene was the first Winger speech, and it was gold.

Oh god yes, the first Winger speech was incredible.

The bit with Steve the Pencil is still one of the most brilliant things ever.

 

[Thaluikhain]

What I look for in a pilot is a story.

Not this "look at this, this won't be explained for weeks, maybe not until the season finale, and maybe not ever" rubbish you get in shows like Archer. Foreshadowing isn't the be all and end all, you can't just wrap it in angst and monologues and make a show out of it.

I hate shows where you have to watch the entire series to decide if it is worth watching it at all. Episodes should be able to stand on their own.

 

[FFP2]

Leverage by far. It was perfect! The chemistry was there from day one.

I hate TNT so much for cancelling it.

 

[stroopwafel]

Millennium(from the late 90's X-Files era of TV shows) has one of the best pilot episodes. It's incredibly moody and atmospheric. In fact(espescially season 1) of Millennium has some of the best writing of any TV show I've ever seen(only Breaking Bad comes close). Season 1 of Millennium has an overarching plot but it's really there in the background as each episode can be enjoyed as a stand-alone episode. I really like this as the variety and authenticity of the themes and storylines really give the show a sense of depth and originality I've rarely seen anywhere else. Apparently Fox(the network Millennium originally aired on) found Millennium ''too dark'' and toned it down significantly in succeeding seasons. All of a sudden the kick-ass protagonist Frank Black(somewhat of a somber loner with the unique 'gift' to peek into the mind of a serial killer) got a partner and the overarching meta-plot took center stage eliminating most of the incidental nature of the show as well as most of the show's mystery and ambiguity which was it's primary appeal.

Kind of funny how times have changed though with shows like The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad now being mainstream entertainment while Millennium was considered too depressing in the late nineties. The things an economic crisis can do.

 

[Henriot]

Firefly.

World was built, characters introduced with existing stories and defining qualities, so much stuff was mentioned/alluded to that came back to bite the crew in the arse later on in the series...

 

[Guffe]

I watch Supernatural (apprently that's a pretty liked series here)
The first episode of season 1 is called "Vendigo" and it is a great first episode for the series
but then...
I saw an episode called "Pilot" and was wondering if that actually is the pilot episode of said series
If that is the case, then it wasn't a good pilot episode to my liking.

Because correct me if I'm wrong, but the pilot episode is the episode that decides if a series gets aired or not? Like they explained it in Pulp Fiction in the 60s hamburger bar!?

 

[MetalDooley]

I watch Supernatural (apprently that's a pretty liked series here)
The first episode of season 1 is called "Vendigo" and it is a great first episode for the series
but then...
I saw an episode called "Pilot" and was wondering if that actually is the pilot episode of said series
If that is the case, then it wasn't a good pilot episode to my liking.

Because correct me if I'm wrong, but the pilot episode is the episode that decides if a series gets aired or not? Like they explained it in Pulp Fiction in the 60s hamburger bar!?

Wendigo is actually episode 2.The episode called "Pilot" is the first episode unsurprisingly