2. Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad is renowned for showcasing possibly the greatest television characterisation of all time; mild-mannered, high school teacher Walter White's gradual transformation to amoral drug overlord Heisenberg has become legendary. Yet the show didn't begin with fireworks; it featured a subtle, slow-cooked beginning to beguile us. In one of the most iconic TV shots ever, Walt's standing in his underpants and green shirt, with a gun and a video recorder. He's just crashed his RV, driving gas-masked across the desert, and now he's about to record a message for his wife, telling her and his son, Walter Jr, that everything he did was for them. He can hear sirens in the distance, so he hurries; it's then that the titles role. What could he have possibly done? Who is this spluttering man, and how has he found himself trouserless in the desert, with dead bodies in the back of his RV? It's a frenzied beginning to the show, that asks so many questions in such a short space of time; it's the perfect way to open such a radioactive idea, and it would become one of many moments in the series where Walt thought the game might be up.