The first episode of a TV show is always tough to pull off. On rare occasions, a great pilot episode leads to a disappointing show.Glee’s pilothad a delightfully dark sense of humor, but the series that followed watered down the comedy. The American remake ofLife on Marshad a solid pilot, but went downhill before being canceled after one season.
It’s much more common that a so-so pilot episode eventually evolves into a classic series. It’s tough to figure out the exact right tone and characterization in just one episode. In most pilots, the bones are there, but they need to be developed. If you watched thefirst episodeofSeinfeld, you’d be confused as to why it’s so beloved.
10Rick & Morty
Rick & Morty’s Pilot Is One Of Its Weakest Episodes
The pilot episode ofRick and Mortyintroduces the basics of the series. It establishes that Rick is a mad scientist who’s invented interdimensional travel, and Morty is his timid grandson who he takes on adventures across the multiverse. It establishes that the series mixesFuturama-style hard sci-fi stories withSimpsons-style grounded family stories.
In retrospect, it’s one of the show’s slowest, loosest, least substantial, and least rewatchable episodes.
But it doesn’t have any of the complexity or hard-hitting emotionality or thought-provoking philosophizing that would earnRick and Mortyuniversal acclaim. In retrospect, it’s one of the show’s slowest, loosest, least substantial, and least rewatchable episodes. The series picked up immediately with its next episode, “Lawnmower Dog,” and season 1 became one ofRick and Morty’s best seasons.
9New Girl
The Pilot Focused More On Jess' Adorkability Than The Strength Of The Ensemble
WhenNew Girlwas ordered to series, the writers realized what a strong ensemble they had on their hands and turned the show into a worthy successor toFriends. It became a classic when it expanded its focus beyond the titular “new girl” to incorporate the lives of her best friend and her roommates.
But in the pilot episode,New Girlis focused squarely on Jess.It had the perfect sitcom ensemble right under its nose, but it leans way too much on Zooey Deschanel’s “adorkable” factor. If you only watched the first episode, it would be hard to understand why so many people love this show.
8Spartacus
The First Episode Is A Cheap Knockoff Of 300
The first episode ofSpartacusmakes it look like the series will be a cheap knockoff of swords-and-sandals blockbusters like300andGladiator. That may have been intentional to get viewers hooked early on, given how popular those films were, but the series that followed was so much more than a small-screen imitation of a Hollywood action movie.
That pilot episode was followed by four solid seasons of television that each culminated in a wildly satisfying finale episode.The first episode seemed to set up a TV-budget version ofGladiator, but the series itself was an in-depth exploration of a real-life slave uprising against the Roman Republic.
7Parks & Recreation
Parks & Rec Began As An Office Rip-Off
Parks and Recreationwas a much more hopeful and uplifting counterpoint toThe Office.The Officewas a bleak, cynical look at a typical workplace full of unfulfilled people, whileParks and Recwas about public servants trying to make the world a better place.Parkswas initially developed asa spinoff ofThe Office, and it shows in its first episode.
The feel-good anti-Officetone of the series can’t be seen in its first episode. In the first episode,Parks and Rectries too hard to emulateThe Office.It makes Leslie Knope as incompetent and oblivious as Michael Scott, and it makes Pawnee’s town hall as drab and unexciting as Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch.
6Firefly
Fox Foolishly Aired The Episodes Out Of Order
Fox really dropped the ball withFirefly. They had one of the greatest sci-fi shows ever made — a space western with a lovable cast and not a single bad episode — and managed to kill it with a baffling release model. Fox made the inexplicable decision toairFirefly’s episodes out of order, which left a lot of viewers confused.
Joss Whedon originally wrote the episode “Serenity” as the pilot, and it’s the perfect introduction to these characters and their unique world (the intergalactic frontier). For some bizarre reason,Fox decided to air “Serenity” as the season finale, and instead aired “The Train Job” as the series premiere. This sci-fi masterpiece was set up to fail by its own network.
5Community
Community’s Pilot Introduces Characters That Would Quickly Change
The pilot episode ofCommunityis dedicated entirely to setting up the study group and their dynamic. The show would quickly become a live-action cartoon with zany, off-the-wall, larger-than-life antics in the halls of Greendale Community College, but the pilot is mostly confined to Group Study Room F.
Communityhad seven major characters to set up, so it made sense to focus the first episode on getting to know those characters without introducing any craziness like a paintball war or a zombie apocalypse. But the characters would all change early in the first season, so the pilot sets up personalities that wouldn’t stick.
4Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generationis one of the go-to examples of a series that started off with a bad first season, but ended up becoming one of the greatest TV shows of all time. The pilot episode received a mixed response on its original airing and opinions on the pilot haven’t improved since the series ended.
While Patrick Stewart gave a great performance from the beginning,Picard wasn’t a great character from the beginning; he was dour and cranky. While the plot of the episode evoked classicStar Trek, it didn’t have that sense of fun that fans had come to expect.
The Pilot Lacks The Series' Signature Subtlety
There’s a lot to love aboutMad Men’s pilot episode.Jon Hamm captured Don Draper’s brooding suavenessfrom the outset, and Don shared electric on-screen chemistry with his mistress, Midge Daniels. The production design was gorgeous from the very beginning, bringing the show’s historical setting to life.
Matthew Weiner won an Emmy for writing theMad Menpilot.
But the pilot lacks the subtlety that would make the rest of the series so great;it’s very on-the-nose with the regressive office politics of the 1960s. It makes sense for the pilot episode — it has to place audiences in the past and establish where we are in American history — but it’s jarring compared to subsequent episodes.
2Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Buffy’s Writers Wisely Listened To What Their Audience Responded To
When it found its footing,Buffy the Vampire Slayerbecame one of the most beloved shows on TV. It was one of the most relatable and endearing and touching high school dramas that just so happened to include vampires and monsters. But it took a whole season for the series to figure out that tone.
Buffy’s first episode was pretty bland. Across the whole first season, the writers focused on recontextualizing their favorite horror stories into a high school setting. It wasn’t until they saw how passionate their fans got about the characters and their relationships that they started digging a little deeper.
1Seinfeld
The Seinfeld Pilot Doesn’t Even Have Elaine
With its dovetailing storylines, sociopathic characters, and “no hugging, no learning” policy,Seinfeldwould go on to reinvent the sitcom. But it took a couple of seasons to find its voice and become the best comedy on TV. Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David had never written a sitcom before, so they had to learn on the job inSeinfeldseason 1.
Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David had never written a sitcom before, so they had to learn on the job.
Seinfeld’s pilot episodeis a serviceable half-hour show that builds to a funny final twist, butit doesn’t have any of the series’ signature narrative trickery or Abbott and Costello-esque wit— it doesn’t even have Elaine. If you’d heardSeinfeldwas the greatest sitcom ever made, the pilot would probably leave you wondering what all the fuss is about.
