10 TV Shows Where The First Episode Was The Best
5. The Night Of
HBO's crime drama mini-series The Night Of opens with an absolutely irresistible first episode, establishing a compulsive central mystery in which Pakistani-American college student Naz (a brilliant Riz Ahmed) is accused of murdering a woman in New York City.
It's a rarest of shows that'll hold you tightly in its grip from the jump, and though Riz Ahmed - who rightly won an Emmy for his performance - is terrific throughout, intrigue slowly but surely drops off in the series' second half as it becomes increasingly contrived and ridiculous, ahead of a wildly disappointing conclusion.
Overall it's still a show worth watching if only for Ahmed's stunning work in the lead role and its indictment of the American criminal justice system, but the electrifying promise of that opening episode isn't fully realised throughout the remaining seven episodes.
The pilot is an all-timer, whereas the rest of the show ranges from "pretty good" to "OK?"