13 TV Shows With the Best Pilot Episodes, Ranked: ‘Lost,’ ‘Game of Thrones’ & More

After dying in a freak accident, Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) is welcomed into “The Good Place,” a reward for her altruistic life’s work. In actuality, though, Eleanor wasn’t a good person, and as this devilishly funny and surprisingly deep series gets going, her erroneous arrival starts wreaking havoc.

Only observant viewers (and maybe fashion historians) could have guessed this pilot’s twist: that Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca Pearson (Mandy Moore) are the parents of the other three leads (Sterling K. Brown, Justin Hartley, and Chrissy Metz). Even without the interconnectivity, we would have watched for the individual plots alone. (That Was Us setting our DVRs.)

Though this musical comedy went flat before long, the first episode hit all the right notes as McKinley outcasts joined cool kids in the high school’s glee club. We could have rooted for Jane Lynch’s sharp-tongued Sue Sylvester in her efforts to take down New Directions, but we won’t stop believing in the underdog.

Sheriff’s deputy Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) is shot in the line of duty and wakes up in an unrecognizable world beset by a zombifying pandemic. On top of that premise, we’ve got eerie visuals of a post-apocalypse Atlanta, horrifying “walker” makeup and VFX, and a tense subplot involving Morgan Jones (Lennie James).

A fungal outbreak ends life as we know it and robs Joel (Pedro Pascal) of his daughter; then, 20 years later, Joel finds new meaning as bodyguard for teen Ellie (Bella Ramsey), who could be the key to humanity’s survival. The video game The Last of Us was an instant classic; its TV adaptation could be even better.

The facts were these: This whimsical “pie-lette” introduced Lee Pace’s piemaker, whose first touch brings a corpse back to life and second touch kills them forever. He uses these powers to solve crimes and to resurrect his childhood sweetheart, played by Anna Friel. After this first slice, we were begging for seconds.

Though its audience was a fraction of that of the series finale, this pilot set the scene for a fantasy phenomenon, all with the polish of prestige TV. Ned Stark (Sean Bean) becomes Hand of the King, Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clark) comes into possession of dragon eggs, and far too many people ignore the White Walker threat.

The West Wing’s pilot is a home run, but Aaron Sorkin really hit it out of the park with Studio 60’s first episode, which starts with an on-air meltdown on an SNL-like show. Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford are the new EPs hired to pick up the pieces, and a then-little-known Sarah Paulson is one of the star players.

After one young woman dies and another lapses into a coma in Twin Peaks, FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) starts uncovering the small Washington town’s weird underbelly. So many modern-day TV series can be traced back to this show, so pour yourself a mug of damn good coffee and give it a watch or rewatch.

Why would a housewife with a picture-perfect life put a gun to her head? In this suburban soap’s pilot, we learn the residents of Wisteria Lane keep their lawns tidy, their flowerbeds blossoming, and their secrets buried — as Felicity Huffman, Teri Hatcher, and Marcia Cross return to TV and Eva Longoria has a star-making turn.

“What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons,” says Sterling Cooper creative director Don Draper (Jon Hamm). Maybe that’s why carries on like a bachelor in NYC before going back to his wife and kids in the ‘burbs in this period-accurate picture of the glamour and galling workplace culture of the 1960s ad industry.

Grad student by day, clandestine agent by night, Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) thinks she has it all figured out — until her fiancé is killed and she realizes she was working for the enemy she thought she was fighting. So she becomes a double agent alongside — surprise, surprise — her spy father. 66 minutes of perfection.

Oceanic 815 goes down on a tropical island, with big-budget production values unseen on TV at that point. But with polar bears, eerie emergency transmissions, and ol’ Smokey the Smoke Monster, that plane crash was just the start of the castaways’ problems… while fans found a mysterious mythology to obsess over.