What’s the best television pilot of all time?
- Thread starter Threetrees
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I binged all 3 seasons last year for the first time when I got covid, it was glorious.
At some point during season 3, which is the best thing I’ve ever seen on TV, I wished that real life was more like it. Careful what you wish for they say. It came true.
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X-Files pilot episode absolutely has to be included in the discussion. To me I don't know that it gets any better than that individual episode for that series. Over time the whole first season has really grown on me to be my favorite. Season one has a very different vibe that hits the fucking spot, and the pilot nailed shit down in the beginning with cinema quality 45 minute little movie that is top shelf.
Somebody already mentioned Millennium the Lance Hendrickson show that was a pretty epic pilot episode for sure, going for the Seven feel and with killer later 90's vibes with the NIN and White Zombie music. The show definitely failed to keep that up the rest of that first season was pretty flat. I haven't been able to rewatch the rest to tell how it holds up but still remember digging the show back in the day.
The 1997 Heath Ledger show Roar had a pretty epic pilot but flies off the rails pretty quick. The mid-season finale was so bad they cancelled the show.
Somebody already mentioned Millennium the Lance Hendrickson show that was a pretty epic pilot episode for sure, going for the Seven feel and with killer later 90's vibes with the NIN and White Zombie music. The show definitely failed to keep that up the rest of that first season was pretty flat. I haven't been able to rewatch the rest to tell how it holds up but still remember digging the show back in the day.
The 1997 Heath Ledger show Roar had a pretty epic pilot but flies off the rails pretty quick. The mid-season finale was so bad they cancelled the show.
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I thought the first two seasons were pretty good. If I remember right season one was kind of serial killer of the week and season two was more X-Files overarching conspiracy type stuff. Then for season three they introduced a sidekick and made it buddy cop stuff and it needed to be put out of its misery right quick.
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Fox Force 5 was pretty good.
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Chernobyl is my #1 mini-series GOAT.
That said, mini-series pilots should be in a separate category from regular series.
Mini-series have a clear beginning, middle, and ending within a far lower number of episodes than regular series and have different standards of storytelling.
Mini-series basically cinematic novels - episodes are chapters - and the pilot is the 1st chapter. Regular TV series are like many-books long series and the pilot is the 1st chapter of the 1st book.
Kinda like how GoT's seasons were adaptations of each book of the ASOIAF series.
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I would separate miniseries, too, but for the sake of comprehensiveness when compiling IMDb ratings for other Sherdoggers' to study for their own pleasure, I didn't want to leave it out, and left those judgements to them.
There's a bit of funny business there, too. Awards ceremonies call them "Limited Series", and Fargo famously avoided contending with the other heavyweights at the Emmy's, most notably Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, by applying within that category. One could argue that this is justified because each season tells its own story with its own characters, and there are almost no crossover with other stories besides a tiny few Easter Egg references from the shared location (Fargo, North Dakota) to historical events, building, items, or characters shown in the other seasons. FX calls these "anthology limited series".
https://www.writtenby.com/webexclusives/rise-of-the-miniseries
Further complicating things, there have been projects in the past which were originally supposed to be a miniseries, but were popular enough that they expanded into a regular TV show by serializing additional content. Big Little Lies is a recent HBO example. My own nominee, Battlestar Galactica, is one of these. The made-for-TV "movie" that became so popular the SyFy network decided to follow it up with a series was actually shown in two parts like a traditional miniseries.
And now I realize I totally forgot to add Roots to the list.
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Lonesome Dove is one that has a pretty dull start considering where it ends up by the last episode, essentially becoming the greatest Western ever put to film. My crew was framing a house in the middle of nowhere here in Texas and there was ZERO cell phone signal, none whatsoever. Everybody phone switched to SOS mode for the 3 months we worked out there. So I got a portable DVD player and we set up a spot for lunches and I brought Lonesome Dove to watch during lunch break. None of the guys had any interest in it in the first episode, but with no cell service it was like had no choice but to watch it, there was shit else to do for an hour lunch. By the last episode everybody was way into it all hyped up about watching it every day, glued to the little screen at lunch.
