10 Best TV Pilot Cliffhangers Ever
6. Invincible - A Super Scuffle
Amazon’s hit superhero drama blew just about everyone away when it debuted. Playing on familiar tropes in the style of a Saturday morning cartoon, Invincible was very good at subverting audience expectations at every turn.
Invincible made use of real-life dramatic elements like family trouble, relationship issues, grief and abuse to give us one of the more original twists on the superhero genre we’ve seen in a while.
One major way the show subverted expectations was the use of strong, bloody violence. The first episode mainly keeps the gore to a minimum, really lulling us into a false sense of security over what kind of show it is and where the characters are generally aligned.
That is until the closing moments when the initial protagonist Omni-Man (a Superman-like figure) massacres the superheroic team The Guardians of the Globe in brutal fashion. Not only is the shocking violence on display horribly realistic from a biological point of view, but we’re also given absolutely no reason or motive for the attack.
Compounding the shock value was the fact the show had spent the entire episode getting us emotionally invested in these characters. This first episode cliffhanger felt like it was designed in a laboratory to get us to continue watching.