AVQ&A: What's your favorite TV pilot of all time?

Picking the pilot for Veronica Mars is almost too easy. It’s a pilot masterclass, expertly balancing everything you need to know from the past (the death of Lily Kane and Veronica’s subsequent ostracization) with everything you can expect from the show in the future: a high school case of the week paired with the ongoing investigation into Lily’s death, all wrapped up in the simmering class tensions of Neptune, California. The exposition never feels tedious, because Veronica’s narration and flashback to past traumas are woven into the structure of the series. The episode expertly establishes all the characters who will be most relevant (Percy Daggs III as Wallace, Jason Dohring as Logan, Francis Capra as Weevil, Enrico Colantoni as Keith Mars, etc.), and most importantly introduces Kristen Bell as Veronica Mars, the sharp, angry, hurt teenager willing to make her own justice, secretly hiding a heart of gold: “You’re a marshmallow, Veronica Mars. A twinkie.” TV history was made! [Mary Kate Carr]

It’s undeniable that Twin Peaks has a damn fine pilot. David Lynch and Mark Frost focus on curating the ABC show’s subliminal setting beat by beat, with Angelo Badalamenti’s score aiding the mission. Twin Peaks is immediately disorienting, setting the expectation for the horrors to come after Laura Palmer’s body is discovered “wrapped in plastic.” The show takes risks—the lead character isn’t introduced until 30 minutes in, blabbering about the weather, trees, and the price of his food. Thankfully, Dale Cooper (Kyle Maclachlan) is as charming as they come; a ray of sunshine compared to the dark pit he’s driving into. The pilot’s structure is a gateway to what Twin Peaks does best: It’s both a tribute to and subversion of the genre, an achievement for network TV in 1980. [Saloni Gajjar]

If you’ve ever taken a screenwriting class, there’s a good chance you’ve read the pilot for Cheers, and for good reason: it’s a masterclass in inviting you into a place where audiences would end up spending 11 seasons. While Cheers is largely an ensemble show, the pilot episode, “Give Me A Ring Sometime,” carefully introduces us to Sam Malone (Ted Danson), a sober, good-natured bartender who will nonetheless refuse service to a visibly underage patron. While many of the show’s most beloved characters—Frasier Crane, Woody Boyd, Rebecca Howe—wouldn’t visit the bar for years, we’re introduced to more than enough personality to keep us around, and get the seeds of Sam’s romance with Diane Chambers (Shelley Long). But most crucially, Cheers’ pilot introduces us to its titular bar, recognizing that in this case, the place is just as vital as the people. Spending 26 minutes in this one, dimly lit location, you observe the characters scheme and stew, and by the time it’s over you feel cozy enough to want to come back, week after week. [Drew Gillis] 

It’s a testament to the sick, slick genius of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal that we don’t meet its titular cannibal until almost exactly the halfway point of its debut episode, “Apéritif.” After 20 minutes of watching Hugh Dancy’s Will Graham wobble in the midst of the most savage and grotesque evils of the murderous mind, the show cuts suddenly to the refined, beautiful home of the man who will eventually knock him completely off his axis. Mads Mikkelsen’s face, perfect and composed, would be an easy relief from Dancy’s tortured twitching—if we in the audience weren’t already primed to know that his sublimely satisfied expression comes from the human flesh he’s currently devouring. Beyond that best-in-show intro, though, “Apéritif” is also just a perfect introduction to Hannibal‘s unique, occasionally tenuous blending of boilerplate police procedural and art-house extravagance, giving us room to feel real love and sympathy for Dancy’s Will that will only make the hell he’s about to be put through all the more exquisitely painful. [William Hughes]

Has a series ever announced itself with as much confidence as Community? While signaling everything that the show would come to be in a mere 20 minutes would have been as impossible as flying that KFC space simulator to the actual moon, Dan Harmon and co. got pretty damn close. It took the study group just one episode to find the sort of chemistry and comedic timing other casts often take years to discover, if they’re lucky enough to reach it at all. The pilot gives us our first Jeff speech, our first “Oh, that’s nice” from Shirley, our first (and second and third and fourth) Abed movie reference, and even a couple all-timer gags like Troy and Pierce giggling over “ass burgers” and “You know what makes humans different from other animals?” “Feet.” “No, come on, bears have feet,” from Jeff, Troy, and Pierce respectively. It’s a perfect 101 course in How To Introduce A Television Show, one that could only have been taught at a place like Greendale. Oh, and take your Community notification. You’re welcome! [Emma Keates]

I’m not going to sit here and tell you that 30 Rock‘s first episode is a good sitcom pilot in general, or even a good introduction to this show specifically. In the pilot, 30 Rock is still very much operating in “sitcom about SNL writers” mode. There are few indicators of how truly weird 30 Rock would become, and it almost feels like watching a pilot for an entirely different show than the later seasons. But for all the salient advice dispensed throughout the show’s run—usually by Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), with lines like “Never go with a hippie to a second location,” though you shouldn’t sleep on Liz Lemon’s (Tina Fey) advice to put potato chips on a sandwich, either—there’s a little-remembered gem from Pete (Scott Adsit) in the pilot that is basically the mantra around which I’ve shaped my life. Early in the episode, Liz is waiting in line at a hot dog stand when some asshole cuts tried to cut in front of her. In response, she buys the whole cart’s worth of hot dogs, just to spite the would-be line cutter. Later, after Liz finds out Jack fired Pete, she calls him on the phone, swearing to quit in solidarity. Pete talks her down by saying, “Don’t buy all the hot dogs.” It’s a clever way to tie together the plot of the episode, but it’s also surprisingly versatile advice. Next time you’re trying to stop yourself from making a rash decision, just remember: Don’t buy all the hot dogs. [Jen Lennon]

Is there a bigger flex than gunning down a playing-himself Paul Rudd within your pilot’s first eight minutes? No. No, there very much is not. Rudd is just one of the many people who die throughout the course of Jon Glaser’s absurd Adult Swim show, which ran for three brilliantly funny seasons and ended with one brilliantly dark (and still funny) standalone series finale. The joke of the project—a dick of a dad in the Witness Protection Program (Glaser) puts his family on camera and risks their lives just to become famous on a shitty reality show—somehow doesn’t grow old, in this short debut or 20-plus episodes later. And come to think of it, the ski masks and voice modulators don’t either. [Tim Lowery]

The Prisoner’s influential, puzzling, countercultural sci-fi spy show only ran for 17 episodes total (the blessing and curse of British TV), so its pilot needed to do even heavier lifting than some of the other first episodes on this list. And there are no wasted frames of The Prisoner. Before the credits even finish rolling, we’ve been treated to phenomenal stunt driving and a fully-fleshed premise: Patrick McGoohan, soon to be known as Number Six, is getting out of the spy game, but his heated retirement directly leads to his drugging, kidnapping, and transportation to the mysterious Village. The dystopia that quickly unfolds before the confused, now-numbered hero was cutting-edge when it first aired in 1967 and now, after shaping how J. J. Abrams and Mark Frost approached their own era-defining shows, it still stands as an elegant, efficient, artfully disorienting piece of allegory. The camerawork and cuts are cinematic, flourishing to confuse you and prevent any understanding of the Village’s layout. The details are hilarious, absurd, and disturbing; when you see the giant evil bubble, you’ll understand what I mean. It culminates in a perfectly hooky pitch for the series, and a defining example of its aesthetic and tone. You can’t trust a thing you see or hear, but you’re certainly going to stick around to see and hear more of it. [Jacob Oller]

The title of episode one should be the first clue that Pushing Daisies is a show with its tongue firmly planted in its cheek. The second and third clues should be the names Bryan Fuller and Barry Sonnenfeld, who won an Emmy for directing the hell out of “Pie-lette.” Lee Pace stars as Ned, an isolated pie maker with a unique ability. He’s supported by a formidable cast that includes Kristin Chenoweth, Chi McBride, Anna Friel, Ellen Greene, and Swoosie Kurtz. It begins with narrator Jim Dale (an unseen and underrated MVP) introducing us to Ned and his childhood sweetheart Chuck (Friel) in a technicolor flashback that looks like a fairytale storybook come to life. Except it turns out to be more like one of those old, disturbingly dark folk tales dating back to the plague era, told through the stylistic lens of a vintage MGM musical. There’s a lot of death, is what I’m saying, but it’s also super cute (and revealing any more would spoil the fun). [Cindy White]

Directed by Clark Johnson, The Shield‘s “Pilot” is ruthlessly efficient and just plain ruthless. In its first hour, Shawn Ryan’s FX drama tells a story from beginning to end while also unfurling tendrils that would reach across its seven seasons. Before Game Of Thrones swung the executioner’s axe, The Shield dispatched its presumed protagonist in summary fashion, thereby introducing a world dominated by bad guys and worse guys; where the most that the “decent” ones could hope for is to make it out alive. At the heart of this darkness is Michael Chiklis’ Vic Mackey, for whom stabbing people in the back had become so easy, he had to move on to shooting colleagues in the face. It was far from the first time Chiklis and his fellow cop show veterans Ryan and Johnson would subvert expectations—amid a sea of copaganda, The Shield took inspiration from the LAPD Rampart scandal—but “Pilot” remains the exemplar for captivating series openers. [Danette Chavez]