Best pilot episodes

[Emelee]

TV Line has an article ranking the best pilot episodes.

https://tvline.com/lists/best-tv-pilot-episodes-photos/

Do you agree with the list? Are there episodes there you didn't like? Which pilot episodes would you have chosen to add to the list?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I see the twentieth century mostly never happened.

 

[bmasters9]

I personally would add the movie-length pilot of Emergency! to that list (OAD Saturday, January 15, 1972 on NBC); it set up the fight to get a paramedic program started in California (one of the main characters in the series, Dr. Kelly Brackett [Robert Fuller], was initially opposed to it, but eventually joined the fight).

From this 1972 pilot picture (an NBC Saturday Night at the Movies broadcast that night) came a 6-season masterpiece of television that had Fuller, Julie London, Bobby Troup, Randolph Mantooth, Kevin Tighe et al. (Jan. 1972 to May 1977), and has been credited for helping get paramedic and EMT programs started in many areas of America (I have finished it all on DVD [this pilot, the series, the Adam-12 crossover, and the Final Rescues TV movies of 1978 and '79]); it is also well-worth the money on DVD.

Here is an ad for what I believe is the pilot, from WBZ Channel 4 in Boston (now the CBS O&O of that New England area):



And here is the opening from that 1972 pilot picture:

 

[Willie Oleson]

LOL @ How To Get Away With Murder.
To me it looks like a random list of popular series and most of them maintained or even surpassed the quality of their respective pilot episodes - except for LOST.
Compared to the rest of the series that was a standout episode.
I think I feel the same about GAME OF THRONES.

 

[DallasFanForever]

I’m glad to see ROSEANNE made the list but I honestly would’ve put it much higher. The pilot is one of the best episodes of the entire series in my opinion. They did a great job setting up the show and giving us a feel of what it would become in just that first half hour.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

A few years ago, they compiled a list of "worst" (or was it "best"?) series finales "of all time" and every selection took place after 2007.

 

[Monzo]

I have no bad blood against shows like The OC, Parenthood, Everwood and Scandal, but I wouldn't call their pilots outstanding. A strong top 10 list would have been more meaningful than a top 25.

 

[Willie Oleson]

I would add FLAMINGO ROAD (1980) to that list.
It was noticeable for the different set of Lute-Mae Sanders' bar and it had one of the (if not the) most horrific death scenes in the history of prime time soap.

 

[bmasters9]

I’m glad to see ROSEANNE made the list but I honestly would’ve put it much higher. The pilot is one of the best episodes of the entire series in my opinion. They did a great job setting up the show and giving us a feel of what it would become in just that first half hour.

Incidentally, the Roseanne pilot did in a half-hour what Emergency! did in two hours.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I've said this before on "that other page" numerous times, but I think the 1980 pilot for DYNASTY, the first three-hour pilot for series in history, was really excellent -- it was just exactly what it was and needed to be, conveying everything the subsequent series should have been and wanted to be yet became far too middling and self-conscious to achieve (at least, not for very long).

The direction, the script, the music score, the casting, the overall tone, the quiet majesty -- it was almost holy.

 

[tommie]

I have no bad blood against shows like The OC, Parenthood, Everwood and Scandal, but I wouldn't call their pilots outstanding. A strong top 10 list would have been more meaningful than a top 25.

I agree - Scandal especially stands out as "eeeh" to be included. It really was nothing special and you can see it in the luke-warm reception of the first season (not that ratings are everything of course).

While the list is mostly bogus, I can see why a lot of pre-1970s shows wouldn't make it tbh - pilots from before that era felt largely "normal episode" mode rather than huge set-ups (for better or worse).

 

[Emelee]

I haven't seen many of the series on the list, so I can't comment much. But Twin Peaks, Scrubs & Desperate Housewives all had terrific pilot episodes. They managed to get me hooked right away, which basically is the main function of a pilot.

I am missing a few series on the list. I think Succession and Mad Men definitely should have been on the list. Both those pilots got me hooked. Revenge also got me hooked right away.

Murder, She Wrote had a nice pilot. A double episode where Jessica gets her new career started and a very nice tribute to Sherlock Holmes.

But while I became a big fan of Game of Thrones, I must say I struggled with the pilot episode. It didn't appeal to me until the very end of the episode.

 

[cws]

I would have added The Golden Girls!

 

[TaranofPrydain]

Most of these are post-2000, and I'm really not as familiar with most of these shows.

That said, Twin Peaks' pilot is iconic, and the ones for Desperate Housewives, Pushing Daisies, Roseanne, and Alias are very strong. ER's was good, but some of its near subsequent episodes (like the one with Rosemary Clooney) were better.

Of other series....
Moonlighting's two hour pilot was a bit overextended but had several great set pieces and already crackling chemistry and sharp dialogue.
China Beach had a stunning opening, strong atmosphere, great acting, and a heartrending scene toward the end involving Chole Webb.
The Wonder Years was a good little show, but it never topped that ideal first episode.
L.A. Law had a great guest turn off the bat with Alfre Woodard, and the show really moved well.
Dynasty had a great super-long pilot that hooked you in quickly.

I'll also throw in good words for the first episodes of The Waltons, St. Elsewhere, Taxi, Family, Knots Landing, Falcon Crest, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Cheers, thirtysomething, Beauty and the Beast, Brooklyn Bridge, and Gilmore Girls.

 

[Jimmy Todd]

Is the pilot episode different from the first episode? For example, when Archie and Edith go to Maude's daughter's wedding on an episode of All in the Family, is that Maude's pilot episode?

 

[TaranofPrydain]

A few years ago, they compiled a list of "worst" (or was it "best"?) series finales "of all time" and every selection took place after 2007.

the "Worst Series Finale" one features Seinfeld, Roseanne, and Quantum Leap, all of which ended in the 1990s.

the "best" list of the same includes The Fugitive, Cheers, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Newhart, and (most controversially) St. Elsewhere

 

[tommie]

I would have added The Golden Girls!

I don't think the Golden Girls pilot was that great tbh - it had loads of potential, but ultimately there were things that had to be fixed once it went to series (like dropping the gay housekeeper).

 

[Daniel Avery]

Is the pilot episode different from the first episode? For example, when Archie and Edith go to Maude's daughter's wedding on an episode of All in the Family, is that Maude's pilot episode?

In the situation you mention, that is not the pilot for Maude in the truest sense. That is what we call today a "back-door pilot," where the parent show does an episode of their series that sets up the framework for a spin-off. That episode, however, is considered an episode of the parent show (AITF, in your example), and would be sold into syndication as if it were just another episode of AITF. If the network buys the concept, then a "proper" pilot episode is filmed and it will air as the first episode of the spin-off series. They might even re-stage some of the scenes from the parent show's back-door pilot in this first episode of the spin-off, though not the whole thing obviously. because the goal of this first episode is to set up the spin-off characters' lives independent of the parent show.

I recall the AITF spin-off The Jeffersons did a similar back-door pilot during a "regular" AITF episode, with one especially memorable (and uncomfortable) argument between George and the Willises seen in the AITF episode and re-staged in the pilot for The Jeffersons.

 

[bmasters9]

How about the pilot of what would later be ABC's 1959-63 B/W Untouchables series, which was originally aired on CBS in 2 parts on consecutive Mondays, April 20, 1959 and April 27, 1959, on Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse (and later released theatrically as The Scarface Mob)?

Here's the opening from the broadcast of Part 1:

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

the "Worst Series Finale" one features Seinfeld, Roseanne, and Quantum Leap, all of which ended in the 1990s.

the "best" list of the same includes The Fugitive, Cheers, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Newhart, and (most controversially) St. Elsewhere

Those weren't lists I was referring to, though.