Never trust a pilot. When you watch the first episode of any TV show, you are watching an act of desperation. A pilot episode has to lay out the premise, introduce the characters, differentiate itself from its peers and convince an audience of semi-attentive viewers to keep watching. Plus, don’t forget, it’s a complete fumble. Chances are it was written before it was cast, so the writer had no idea of the chemistry of the performers. The music might be off, or the direction, or a million other things.
This is why, when you’re recommending a series to a hard-to-convince friend, you should never make them start at the beginning. A much better idea is to carefully suggest an exemplary later episode; one made once the cast and crew had settled into a groove and everything feels much more organic. A perfect case in point is Schitt’s Creek. Everyone who ever watched Schitt’s Creek hated the first episode beyond description. But everyone who stuck with it has basically spent the last two years in floods of happy tears. Don’t you want that in your life?
Think of all the people who bailed from the American Office after seeing Steve Carell’s terrible Ricky Gervais impersonation in the first episode, only to miss out on one of the smartest, warmest sitcoms in living memory. Think of those who found Better Call Saul’s first episode too slow, and missed out on the pyrotechnics in its latest season. Think of the people who watched the cast of Seinfeld twitch and blink through its painful first episode and missed out on, well, Seinfeld.
Look, we get it. Television is everywhere, and your choices are infinite. But if you are yet to watch any of the following, we implore you: do not start at the start. Pick these recommended episodes instead, then work back. SH
Seinfeld: The Mango
Season 5, episode 1
Amazon Prime Video, All 4
Seinfeld is a show about horrible people, which is easy to forget when watching a cheery episode of one of the most-watched sitcoms of all time. The Mango is not a revered classic ep like The Chinese Restaurant or The Marine Biologist, but neatly demonstrates the structure of the show: four New York weirdos create problems for themselves for no reason, and little to nothing is resolved by the end of the 22 minutes. It’s the perfect intro to the characters: George is consumed by his usual dark anxieties; Jerry is a slick facade masking a fragile child; Elaine airily clangs through life while ruining others; and Kramer gets banned from buying fruit from a local grocer. There are better episodes, but season five was the show’s writhing, layered sweet spot, and this, its opener, was a perfect tone-setter. You’ll never see a better bit about the male bewilderment of cunnilingus (“It’s a hazy mystery”) than the opening cafe scene.
Watch it for: The absurd caper of Jerry having to buy Kramer’s fruit for him, played with the high tension of a bank heist. JG
Better Call Saul: Bagman
Season 5, episode 8
Netflix
To the people who enjoyed Breaking Bad but still haven’t dipped their toes into the fantastic – and some would say superior – prequel, I have only one thing to say: watch Bagman. By far the Breakingest, Baddiest 53 minutes of BCS, it is a stylishly intense, desert-set episode that features timelapses, Breaking Bad callbacks and a ton of interaction between Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks (Mike Ehrmantraut). Plus it’s directed by series creator Vince Gilligan. It is self-contained enough not to spoil what came before it, either. The criticism most often levelled at Better Call Saul (by idiots) is that it’s too slow, too invested in the gradual process of transformation when people just want wham-bam entertainment. But it’s better to view it as a snowball rolling down a mountain. Bagman is the moment when you look up and realise you’re about to be crushed by an avalanche.
Watch it for: The Breaking Bad needle drop 40 minutes in: “Just a lonely soul, slowly dying.” SH
Mad Men: Shoot
Season 1, episode 9
Amazon Prime Video
Unlike so many other shows, Matt Weiner’s 60s-set drama arrived out of the womb pretty much fully formed, clutching a pack of Lucky Strike and a tumbler of Old Fashioned in hand. Its pilot, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, is a gem: seductive, well-drawn and teasing at something bigger and bolder to come. Yet if you were to watch it fresh you might not quite realise the breadth of compelling characters the show had in its arsenal, such is its intense focus on the chiselled jaw of Don Draper. For a better sense of the heights the show would reach, whizz forward to later in the season to Shoot, which provides us with our first truly revealing glimpse of Betty, Don’s complex, caged bird of a wife. She jumps at the chance to rekindle her modelling career with the promise of the role in a Coca-Cola ad, but things do not go to plan. It culminates in arguably the most memorable final scene of the show’s entire run …
Watch it for: The final shot: twisted, yet strangely stylish. GM
Twin Peaks: Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer
Season 1, episode 3
Now TV
Come to think of it, it is astonishing that so many of this cult show’s most enduring moments all happen in the same episode: Audrey’s dance, Cooper’s dream, Jack Nance uttering the immortal phrase “There was a fish in the percolator”. It’s almost a self-contained microcosm of David Lynch’s unnerving and beguiling vision, with its seedy criminal underworld, impeccable tailoring and extravagantly decorated log cabins. All you need to know is: homecoming queen Laura Palmer has been murdered, and FBI special agent Dale Cooper has come to town to find her killer. In this episode, Cooper demonstrates his unconventional crime-solving techniques, which involve the Dalai Lama, throwing rocks at bottles and, handily, a brief recap of all the major characters. If by the end of the 48 minutes you – somehow – decide it’s not for you, so be it. But, at the very least, all those parodies littered around pop culture will finally make sense.
Watch it for: An atmospheric world of intrigue and mystery, with a phenomenally attractive cast. KB
Chef’s Table: Niki Nakayama
Season 1, episode 4
Netflix
A lot of Chef’s Table, which profiles global culinary stars, follows a format: pretentious, bad-tempered male chef has a dream: to turn all food into some kind of foam or reduction. He initially struggles – maybe the locals in his remote village want to eat burgers, not his Korean x Icelandic fusion menu – but nepotism saves the day: his dad is a world-famous chef, which means food critics trek out to the restaurant and it’s a success. Five Michelin stars; hold the whale, please. But this episode is different. Japanese-American chef Niki Nakayama’s battle is real: she is patronised by other chefs and suppliers, her family doubt her, male staff quit because they can’t handle working for a female head chef, but she makes her restaurant a success and falls in love. If you want to get your heart broken, then stuck back together again, all while feeling ravenously hungry, this is the episode.
Watch it for: Delicious-looking Japanese food that probably costs the same as your monthly rent. IS
The Comeback: Valerie Makes a Pilot
Season 2, episode 1
Now TV
For a show about the underdog, The Comeback’s bumpy journey to cult status felt pleasingly apt. Built round the fame-starved, endearingly brittle former sitcom star Valerie Cherish – played expertly by Lisa Kudrow – its pin-sharp satire of the TV industry failed to connect and was cancelled in 2005 after one season. Its return in 2014 following a critical volte-face was as unexpected as it was welcome, and this season two opener acts as both a recap and a fresh start. It is a neat callback to where she was at the start of the show – desperate, determined, deluded – but with a darker edge lurking beneath her perfectly coiffured ’do (shoutout: loyal hairdresser Mickey). It all hinges on Kudrow’s barnstorming performance, and she is on top form here, allowing Cherish’s Hollywood mask to slip after a profanity-laden, demon-slaying audition in front of season one nemesis, ageing bro and writer’s room villain Paulie G.
Watch it for: The faux QVC advert for Valerie’s hair colour range, Cherish Your Hair. MC
The Americans: The Clock
Season 1, episode 2
Amazon Prime Video
The Americans makes an outrageous demand of its viewers. It’s a US series set at the peak of cold war paranoia in the 80s that doesn’t just portray both sides as equal in competence and moral rectitude: because we follow two elite Russian operatives posing as an American mom and dad, if anything we’re cheering for the reds. That stark choice is lit up by The Clock, a movie’s worth of spy thrills that contains every element of the show’s future greatness. A tantalisingly valuable prize – the planting of a bug in the secretary of defense’s office – is tilted at by our (anti)heroes using disguises, crazy risks, seduction, old-school espionage … and some shocking brute force that makes “Philip” and “Elizabeth” question whether they’re doing the right thing after all. Maybe not, but we’re right behind them.
Watch it for: The brutal dust-up where we discover that the slight-looking Philip (Matthew Rhys) is an iron fighting machine. JS
The Office (US): Diversity Day
Season 1, episode 2
Netflix
For those of us missing workplace small talk, The Office has become strangely poignant. Following Ricky Gervais’s original 2001 creation, set in a dingy paper office in Slough, the US spin-off began in 2005. The premise is the same, but the US remake is more warm and bingeable, as evidenced in this early episode. In a storyline strangely prescient of the harried corporate response to the BLM movement, boss Michael Scott (Steve Carell) causes an HR furore after performing a racially charged Chris Rock routine. Dissatisfied with the diversity training that ensues, he makes his staff play a game posing as different ethnicities, to “understand their experiences’’. The result is chaos. Here we find the core elements of the show: the sweet connection between Jim and Pam, the rivalry between Jim and Dwight, and Michael’s uncomfortable but endearing need for love. It’s enough to make you yearn for time-wasting tactics and awkward office jokes again.
Watch it for: Vicarious workplace romances and tips on how to impress your boss while doing as little work as possible. AK
Cowboy Bebop: Toys in the Attic
Season 1, episode 11
All 4
Suffering from Mandalorian withdrawal? The 1998 anime Cowboy Bebop also offers bounty-hunting and ad hoc parenting aboard a rickety starship (with a live-action Netflix remake looming). In the cluttered frontier future of 2071, a fractious gang – lanky bounty hunter Spike, beefy ex-cop Jet, knockout grifter Faye and teen space cadet Ed – bum around looking for perps. Like its eccentric jazz-freakout theme tune, the vibe is so cool, fast and loose that it can be overwhelming: what is this show actually about? Skipping ahead to the claustrophobic episode 11, Toys in the Attic, offers a more focused snapshot, as a gloopy stowaway stalks the oblivious Bebop crew. The tone veers from genuine scares to silly slapstick via sarcasm and sly pop-culture nods, but it’s a good acid test for whether the entire 26-episode run will be on your wavelength.
Watch it for: Zig-zagging sci-fi thrills (with the odd emotional gut-punch). GV
American Horror Story: Bitchcraft
Season 3, episode 1
Netflix
Ryan Murphy’s luxuriantly lurid horror anthology is not for everyone, and this opening episode of the third season, Coven, will reveal whether it’s for you. Over nine seasons, AHS has done murder houses, psychiatric hospitals and killer cults, but this “Hogwarts for sophisticates” set-up in sultry New Orleans makes an enticing entry point (although Dumbledore never kept a zombie frat boy as a sex pet, if memory serves). Murphy’s favourite theme of female rage finds its most awesome expression at Miss Robichaux’s Academy. Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson and Frances Conroy combine powers with Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett to ensure the show doesn’t just go over the top, it takes a running jump and sets a new pole-vault record on the way. Those who can stomach – and even thrill to – these excesses are in for a wild ride. Wear something black, as Miss Fiona would say.
Watch it for: Gore and gorgeously realised production design, supplied in equal measure. EEJ
