Every one of these first episodes had about an hour to convince a network it could be funny and sad in the same breath. A few did it so well the rest of the series never topped them.
1Louie – PilotThe 2010 opener that set Louis C.K.'s stand-up against short, melancholy vignettes of a divorced father.1000pts
2Freaks and Geeks – PilotThe 1999 opener in which a straight-A student drifts toward the burnouts while her brother dodges a bully.961pts
3M*A*S*H – PilotThe 1972 opener that set a Korean War surgical unit's gallows humour against the wounded arriving by chopper.862pts
4Northern Exposure – PilotThe 1990 opener that strands a New York doctor in a tiny Alaskan town to pay off his medical school debt.812pts
5Ally McBeal – PilotThe 1997 opener in which a young lawyer joins a Boston firm and finds her ex-boyfriend and his wife working there.756pts
6Sex Education – Episode 1The 2019 opener in which a sex therapist's awkward son starts an underground clinic at his school.689pts
7Dead Like Me – PilotThe 2003 opener in which a disaffected teenager is killed by a falling toilet seat and recruited as a grim reaper.689pts
8The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – PilotThe 2017 opener in which a 1950s housewife, newly abandoned, stumbles drunk onto a Greenwich Village stage and kills.611pts
9Fleabag – Episode 1The 2016 opener that introduced Phoebe Waller-Bridge's fourth-wall-breaking Londoner and the grief under her jokes.611pts
10Ted Lasso – PilotThe 2020 opener in which an American football coach arrives at a Premier League club that hired him to fail.611pts
11The Bear – SystemThe 2022 pilot that drops a fine-dining chef into his dead brother's Chicago sandwich shop at full kitchen volume.611pts
12Desperate Housewives – PilotThe 2004 opener narrated by a suburban housewife who has just shot herself, introducing Wisteria Lane's secrets.517pts
13Master of None – Plan BAziz Ansari's 2015 opener, a broken condom and a day of babysitting that asks whether Dev wants kids at all.517pts
14Russian Doll – Nothing in This World Is EasyThe 2019 opener in which Nadia dies on her 36th birthday and wakes back up in the bathroom at her party.517pts
15Reservation Dogs – F*ckin' Rez DogsThe 2021 opener in which four Indigenous teens steal a chip truck to fund an escape to California.517pts
16GLOW – PilotThe 2017 opener in which a struggling actress auditions for a women's wrestling show in 1980s Los Angeles.517pts
17Jane the Virgin – Chapter OneThe 2014 opener in which a devout young woman is accidentally artificially inseminated during a routine check-up.517pts
18Moonlighting – PilotThe 1985 feature-length opener pairing a bankrupt ex-model with a wisecracking detective at the agency she inherits.517pts
19Dead to Me – PilotThe 2019 opener in which a widow bonds at grief group with the woman hiding a secret about her husband's death.517pts
20Weeds – You Can't Miss the BearThe 2005 pilot introducing a widowed suburban mother who deals weed to keep her family afloat.517pts
21Girls – PilotLena Dunham's 2012 opener, in which Hannah's parents cut her off and she pitches her memoir while high.517pts
22Crazy Ex-Girlfriend – Josh Just Happens to Live Here!The 2015 opener in which a New York lawyer throws away her career to follow a summer-camp crush to West Covina, in song.517pts
23Transparent – PilotThe 2014 opener in which a retired professor gathers three adult children to come out as a woman.402pts
24Beef – The Birds Don't Sing, They Screech in PainThe 2023 opener in which a parking-lot road-rage incident spirals into a vendetta between two strangers.402pts
25Californication – PilotThe 2007 opener introducing a blocked novelist whose night with a stranger turns out to be his ex's fiancé's daughter.402pts
26Scrubs – My First DayThe 2001 opener following an intern's first terrifying day at Sacred Heart, daydreams included.402pts
27Barry – Make Your MarkThe 2018 opener in which a depressed hitman wanders into an acting class and decides he wants a new life.402pts
28Shameless – PilotThe 2011 US opener introducing the Gallagher kids keeping a South Side household alive around a drunk father.402pts
29Glee – PilotThe 2009 opener in which a Spanish teacher revives a high-school glee club and recruits its quarterback.402pts
30Insecure – Insecure as F**kIssa Rae's 2016 opener, a 29th birthday, a stale relationship and a rap performed to a room of schoolchildren.0pts
31Six Feet Under – PilotAlan Ball's 2001 opener in which a funeral-home patriarch is killed by a bus on Christmas Eve.0pts
32Atlanta – The Big BangDonald Glover's 2016 pilot, a parking-lot shooting and a rap cousin setting up a show that bends genre at will.0pts
33Orange Is the New Black – I Wasn't ReadyThe 2013 pilot following Piper's first day in a federal prison, where her ex is waiting.0pts
34Nurse Jackie – PilotThe 2009 opener that establishes a brilliant ER nurse crushing painkillers between saving lives.0pts
35Better Things – SamPamela Adlon's 2016 opener, a day in the life of a working actress raising three daughters alone.0pts
36Ugly Betty – PilotThe 2006 opener that sends a Queens outsider into a glossy fashion magazine as the publisher's son's unglamorous assistant.0pts
37Hacks – There Is No LineThe 2021 opener that pairs a Las Vegas comedy legend with a cancelled young writer neither of them wanted.0pts
38Only Murders in the Building – True CrimeThe 2021 opener in which three true-crime-obsessed neighbours find a body in their Upper West Side building.0pts
39The White Lotus – ArrivalsThe 2021 opener that checks a boatload of rich guests into a Hawaiian resort as a coffin is loaded onto a plane.0pts
40Fargo – The Crocodile's DilemmaNoah Hawley's 2014 opener in which a put-upon insurance salesman meets a drifter who kills his bully.0pts
41Gilmore Girls – PilotThe 2000 opener in which a fast-talking single mother swallows her pride and asks her parents to fund her daughter's prep school.0pts
42Pushing Daisies – Pie-letteBryan Fuller's 2007 opener introducing a pie-maker who can wake the dead with a touch, and the girl he brings back.0pts
