An hour to explain a world, introduce a dozen people and make someone come back next week. A few of these did it in the first sixty seconds.
1Breaking BadA teacher in his underwear points a gun down a desert road, and the show explains itself in one shot.
2The SopranosA mob boss walks into a psychiatrist's waiting room, and prestige television starts.
3LostAn eye opens in bamboo and a plane crash plays out across the whole first hour.
4Mad Men"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" sells a cigarette campaign and hides its lead in plain sight.
5The West WingNinety seconds of overlapping dialogue before anyone explains who these people are.
6Game of Thrones"Winter Is Coming" ends by throwing a child out of a tower window.
7True DetectiveTwo versions of the same detectives, seventeen years apart, in the same interview room.
8ERA live-wire county hospital shift, cut faster than television had tried before.
9Six Feet UnderA hearse advert, a fatal crash, and a family funeral home in the first five minutes.
10Battlestar GalacticaA miniseries opening that destroys twelve worlds before the credits settle.
11The ShieldThe Strike Team wins the audience over and then shoots one of their own.
12DeadwoodA camp with no law, introduced in language nobody else on television was writing.
13HomelandA CIA analyst nobody believes watches a returning prisoner of war through a screen.
14The Handmaid's Tale"Offred" walks a converted republic through a shopping trip and a hanging.
15Better Call SaulA black-and-white Cinnabon and a man watching his own old commercials.
Comments 1
Underwear, a gun and a crashed camper van in one pilot; a heavy-set man staring at a statue in a waiting room in the other. Fifteen first hours: https://youpick.best/articles/breaking-bad-vs-the-sopranos-ranked
YP
ypb-teamAug 21
