Good TV Pilots

Liam147

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Not a complete cock, just really young.
Does anyone recall good pilot episodes from TV programmes? Pilots, off the top of my head that I can think of, are Scrubs, Friends, HIMYM, Arrested Development, Simpsons, Family Guy and South Park, and I wouldn't say any are much good.

Regarding the animated ones, the poor production quality is one thing that usually puts me off, especially when you get into them midway through season three or whatever, and you're used to something very different.

Scrubs is similar, in that many of the characters seem quite different (partly in appearance), and the layout of hospital seems different. Small things, I know, but they just don't seem right.

HIMYM (as pilots go) was pretty good. Set the entire storyline out for the season, series and all the characters, but when I watch it after watching all the other episodes it seems pretty poor in comparison.

AD has to introduce loads of characters and set a storyline out in 20 minutes, which it does roughly, but you only understand it better after watching the programme and learning about the characters rather than just being told.

And Friends introduces Rachel along with the other characters, and it's not bad, but it just starts with Chandler talking to them about dreams.

So does anyone know any good pilot episodes? I know these are all comedies, but that's mainly what I watch, and compared to the rest of their episodes, they're not very good. Strange considering you want to hook someone in early, yet very few of these would do. All bar AD I picked up mid-season.
 
I thought both the Scrubs and AD pilots were good tbf.

But on the whole, most great shows do generally have good to great pilots. Hell I can't really think of a show that I rate highly where I kind of disliked the pilot, maybe Buffy I guess. Yet I can think of plenty the other way round -_-

The Shield, Twin Peaks and Sopranos probably stand out as the best for me though.
 
Oh actually both Parks and Recreation and The American Office, bad pilots, bad first seasons.....both redeemed by second seasons.
 
Breaking Bad possibly the best pilot for me. Just dropped you straight into the action and hooked from the start.
 
Futurama was good. They don't have a poor episode really. They also frequently go back to it because of Fry getting frozen.

Recently started watching X-Files. The 1st season starts off very strongly.
 
Yeah BB had a great one.

True Blood, Suits, HIMYM, Lost, Boardwalk Empire (probably the best episode, it was downhill from then on) are a few that spring to mind.

Walking Dead probably had the best pilot episode in recent memory, shame it got a bit shit after that.

A lot of the best shows actually have pretty slow opening pilots though, they don't really worry about instantly pulling the audience in and having massive events, instead they use them to build things up for later on, like The Wire, Mad Men, Rome, Arrested Development, GoT.
 
From my recent memory... GoT and Homeland both had very good pilots that made me want to see more (which is surely the barometer for any pilot)
 
I don't think every shows first episode can be considered the pilot. Usually pilots are used to show studio execs in order to sell them the show. Usually they have lower production budgets because of that so the look is often different. Sometimes they make it the airwaves, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they pick up the pilot but make changes to the actors or characters for the actual first episode that makes it to TV.

One example is if you ever get to see the actual Buffy the Vampire Slayer pilot, not to be confused with the first episode that made it to the air, a different actress was originally cast as Willow. By time they went to production of the first episode Alyson Hannigan had been cast in the role. The pilot episode was never shown on TV.

The original Star Trek's pilot was unaired except for scenes that were later used in a episode entitled Menagerie.

Obviously the first episode of a TV series can be key to show's success especially here in the US where the networks often don't give shows a chance to build their audience. XFiles was a good one. Twin Peaks also. NYPD Blues also was very good.
 
Recently got a dvd of the pilot of Kojak. One of the best if not the best pilot I've ever seen.
Nothing like the series, its more gritty, hard-hitting and filmed in documentary style.
 
Heroes, Lost, ER, Firefly, Alias, Walking Dead had great pilots, for the next season the pilots i'm looking forward to see are:

Last Resort


Revolution


Arrow


The Following
 
The A-Team. Had someone else playing Faceman and was the episode that had Hannibal in a lizard suit smoking a cigar which made it to the opening credits
 
God I always forget the Simpsons.....I never rewatch the first season anymore because it's so bad, yet I strangely remember loving it when it first came about. Second season is solid enough to watch though, but still season 3 is where it starts for me.
 
Randall Flagg said:
Which was the Simpsons Pilot?

The lost in the forest one?
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The Santa's little helper/christmas one. It's not so bad, it's quite similar to the first season actually, I'm just not a fan of the episode.

Although if I'm not mistaken they did do sketches of sorts for the Tracy Ullman(sp) show in the late 80s. There's clips of them about, in fact I think one of their 'documentary'/clip show episodes they show some. Looked absolutely awful.

Zen said:
God I always forget the Simpsons.....I never rewatch the first season anymore because it's so bad, yet I strangely remember loving it when it first came about. Second season is solid enough to watch though, but still season 3 is where it starts for me.
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Pretty much where I'm at. Then stopped as they got into the super-crystal clear, HD era, when storylines just stopped. Full credit to them for keeping it going so long.
 
The West Wing.

If you watch it again (after watching the series) it's very noticable how little Bartlet was in it. He was originally going to be a supporting character.
 
I found it oddly weird that he wasn't in it despite everyone being like "Martin Sheens in this"......then bam Rob Lowe is actually your main character pretty much -_-
 
Zen said:
I found it oddly weird that he wasn't in it despite everyone being like "Martin Sheens in this"......then bam Rob Lowe is actually your main character pretty much -_-
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That was the original show. Just the behind the scenes workings of Sam, Josh and Toby with the odd appearance of Bartlet. The audience took to Bartlet (and not Rob Lowe) so much that he got much more screen time.
 
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