I was going to mention Picket Fences too ... the pilot was fantastic. The only negative thing is that the pilot doesn't hint at the "social issues themes" the series would later take on a weekly basis.

Can't wait until Season 2 gets released.

Lost
NYPD Blue

Touching Evil (USA)

LOST no doubt

Anyone remeber 7 Days? That pilot was awesome. It showed a plane crashing into the White House. Why isn't it out on dvd? yargh

I don't remember 7 days at all but it sounds like my kind of show. God, now I want it on dvd. Where the hell was I? What channel was it on?

Does the miniseries that launched the new Battlestar Galactica actually count as a pilot?

Good call there. Burn Notice was also excellent, come to think of it.

I believe it depends on the intent. Was the mini-series intended as an intro or tryout to the weekly series or an afterthought? I'd call this a pilot. Lot's of 70's shows were originally movies of the week(Kung Fu, Six Million Dollar Man, Alias Smith and Jones). Did they just make a movie and later decide to make a series because the movie went over, or make a movie to test the waters for a series? I wouldn't call the "Night Stalker" movie a pilot for "Kolchak". Two years and one sequel later they decided to make a series even though it was one of the most popular tv movies ever made.

Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks, Lost and Buffy.

Definitely The Shield. Characters were firmly established, and the ending was a major event that would set the stage for the entire series.

Six Feet Under. Better than most movies.

Alias
Lost
West Wing
Twin Peaks
Rescue Me

Twin Peaks.

Unlike anything seen up to that time...had us immediately hooked.

However, I'm still a sucker for some of the old sixties/seventies series in which the pilot set the stage for the rest of the series by introducing characters/scenarios, etc.:

Examples:

Wild, Wild West
Hawaii Five-O
Gunsmoke
Bonanza
Mission,Impossible
Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Daniel Boone
The Fugitive
The High Chapparal
Lost In Space
Combat!
Batman
Kung Fu
The Prisoner

These are just a few examples. What most of them have in common are relatively high budgets and production values (especially for the time), big-name guest stars (or introduction of a 'major' recurring villain such as Dr. Loveless or Wo Fat) and the show's 'gimmick', tight script, etc. While I wouldn't call all of the above shows high quality television (Lost In Space is a prime example of a concept gone wrong), the pilots were exciting and offered a lot of promise. While the shows usually quickly settled into a routine formula, the pilots were often good enough to be released theatrically (especially overseas) and sometimes featured a double-length running time. Many of them went downhill quickly, as opposed to some far better shows that started off kind of slow (X-Files, ST: The Next Generation) but turned into cult favorites. So I'm judging solely on the basis of the pilot regardless of how the show eventually turned out. No comedies on the list as I find that it takes even the best comedies a little while to find their niche (30 Rock & My Name Is Earl are modern exceptions...they hit the ground running).

The Shield is my favorite show ever, but I thought the pilot was one of the weakest episodes.
If you don't count the miniseries, 33 would be the Battlestar Galactica pilot, and it was fantastic.
I loved the Bionic Woman pilot, with the Starbuck fight, but I'm alone there.
I hate the Family Guy now, but post Super Bowl pilot was great, before the jokes got incredibly stale.
The Lost, Alias, and Pushing Daisies (directed by Sonnenfeld) pilots all had huge production values and were great.
But if I had to pick one, I'd take The Sopranos. Introduced the characters, set up relevant story arcs, funny and exciting.

Smith was a fantastic pilot. You could tell that they had a large budget, and the action sequences were great. Of course, the subsequent episodes weren't as good (although I enjoyed them) and it was canceled pretty quickly due to the ratings and rumored infighting between Liotta and Madsen.

+1

Actually, the point is academic, since even if it weren't, then the first episode of the series (the perfect "33") would be.

Either way, spectacular into to a series.



-Doc


EDIT: Ah, dammit, Cleaver. That's what I get for hitting, "quote" before finishing the page.

Homicide:LotS
Hill Street Blues - Andy and Bobby left in the building, shot and alone.
ER
The Shield

and ... Lost

Doug

Smallville - The I was most looking forward to and loved every moment of it. Huge Superman fan growing up.

Lost - Production was AWESOME, felt like I was in the movie theater watching it.

The Shield, The Sopranos, Arrested Development, Lost... all classics

more amazing in the case of AD... as is seems lots of comedies miss the mark when they first air and after retooling hit their stride... examples of this are Sex and the City and Seinfeld(which took a few years to break through) and even the Simpsons was average for the first couple seasons

The Wonder Years
Nip/Tuck
Arrested Development
The Riches


-NiCK

also, the first episode of "Pushing Daisies" was so fresh and different, that it really had me hooked right away.

Prison Break.

With the earlier post, I was thinking mainly about older shows & forgot all about it. Of all the current favorites, this one had us hooked right away (despite...or maybe because of...its sort of ridiculous premise). I guess I give it extra points because we thought we'd hate it, and our reaction was just the opposite. The big 'revelation' at the end of the episode set the stage for the entire season.

the x-file
kolchak the night stalker (the old one)