10. American Horror Story "Pilot"
I bet most of you have never watched this show, and I will admit that this pilot just made it onto the list, however watching this was a breath of fresh, macabre air. The pilot hooked me immediately and made me want to see so much more, even though I found the later half of the season somewhat uneven, rushed, and not all that inventive, but I love the show and I will watch season 2 because there really is nothing of this genre currently on TV. This was, along with Homeland, my favorite new show of last year. The episode focuses on the Harmon family made up of the somewhat veteran actors Dylan McDermott, Connie Briton and their daughter, the fantastic newcomer Taissa Farmiga who move to Los Angeles after Connie's characters husband played by Dylan McDermott has an affair with a younger woman. Little do they know however that the house they are moving into is known by the neighbors as the "Murder House" and every resident (almost) who has lived in the house for the last 100 years or so has been killed in gruesome ways as the house is haunted by every person who ever died in its walls (and there are a lot). This episode starts off in the past as we are presented immediately with the central character on the show, the house itself, and witness it do its work on two young twin boys. Though I don't get scared easily at all, and this series didn't scare me in the slightest, it is so much more than a show for horror fans, and adds a lot of variety and surrealism to an otherwise samey line up of shows on TV. There is nothing else like this on TV, and the pilot shows enough promise and excitement to keep you hooked through the ups and downs of the rest of the episodes.