10 TV Shows Where The First Episode Was The Best
8. The Walking Dead
It's tough to top the pilot episode of your TV show when you've brought in the man behind The Shawshank Redemption to write and direct it.
Frank Darabont, who developed AMC's adaptation of comic book series The Walking Dead and served as showrunner during its first season, also helmed its outstanding first episode, "Days Gone Bye."
The pilot brilliantly conveys the awe-striking scale of the undead apocalypse as protagonist Rick Grimes (a superb Andrew Lincoln) wakes up in hospital and discovers that the world has gone to Hell in a handbasket.
It's clear that no expense was spared in giving Darabont a truly cinematic canvas to paint on, all while introducing us to most of the first season's principal players.
Though The Walking Dead's entire first season was rock solid, the quality quickly became erratically inconsistent thereafter, defined by glacially slow, padded storytelling, disappointing cast departures, and wonky visual effects.
The franchise may continue to live on through its seemingly never-ending slew of spin-off shows, but it's never been better than that very first episode way back in 2010.