8. Desperate Housewives "Pilot"
For all those that are at this point thinking this list is going to be full of rubbish TV shows, wait, I promise it gets a lot better. I actually watched every episode of this show, and the reason for this is because the show had a truly stellar first (and arguably second) season. However, in retrospect, the show started to dramatically go down hill from the end of season 2, until it was pretty appalling by its finish. If I wasn't a completest I would have probably given up around season 5, but there were a few good episodes past this season and a lot of funny lines. Plus, if I am being completely honest, I do really like the four leading ladies on the show, and they were always better than the material they were given. Regardless of what the show became, the pilot was probably the shows greatest episode, and boy did it hook you in. Opening with a Stepford Wife-ish looking woman committing suicide in what you'd think was a pretty average suburban neighborhood, and ends with four women finding out that the woman was blackmailed for keeping a dark secret by someone likely in the street, finding a note that read "I know what you did. It makes me sick. I'm going to tell". Perhaps a pretty easy way to hook in an audience, but the pay off of this secret is actually pretty darn good, as is the rest of the first season. If you never watched the show because you either thought it was too "made-for-middle aged women" or you were just more into your dark dramas, this show could actually get surprisingly dark at times, and the first season is one of the greatest murder mystery type stories ever told on television. Plus, this episode was universally loved by critics, and won three Emmy awards and a Directors Guild of America award... so at least at first it was a pretty good show.