20 TV series that nailed it with their very first scenes

A man opens his eyes and finds himself under a canopy of trees. He looks completely disoriented, wearing a suit and covered in bloody scratches—and we have no idea why. This first mystery is already intriguing—and then the man, whom we come to know as Jack, races toward a beach, where he frantically tends to fellow survivors of the plane that just crashed. Those first few minutes are completely compelling, giving viewers no choice but to keep watching and find out (or, more realistically, hope to find out—this is Lost, after all) what went wrong. —Ariana Bacle

The leisurely camerawork, the cicadas, the weird genre cocktail of John Ford and Mad Max: It’s all there in the prologue, a trip to a gas station that’s not as empty as it appears to be. The cinematic sequence is practically dialogue-free—climaxing with the horrifying little blonde zombie girl holding a teddy bear, her corroded brains exploding onto the ground with the first of many shots from Rick Grimes’ revolver. America got the message: Jericho this ain’t. —Darren Franich

The brilliant thing about the brutal beginning of Game of Thrones is how perfectly it framed the grand, apocalyptic arc of the show. Yes, the majority of our time will be spent with petty nobles, fighting over a metal chair—and it will all seem very important. But what everyone should really be worried about are the ice zombies. —Kevin P. Sullivan

Here’s how to hit the ground running and screaming. In a little over two minutes, Arrested introduces Michael Bluth, his vain siblings, and his narcissist parents, each their own beautiful egotistical snowflake. From the beginning, the show’s signature chaingun gag-per-millisecond pace was already there—double entendres, cutaway flashbacks, “a trick is something a whore does for money.” —Darren Franich

A billowing pair of pants. A man in a gas mask and his underwear careening down a desert road in an RV. A video-taped message to his family. And a gun. This series’ iconic opening shows Walter White at one of his most desperate moments, and one when he still resembles Mr. Chips more than Scarface. Mysterious, gorgeously shot and heightened with suspense, this first scene sets the tone for the entire series to come—and delivers the first defining moments in Walter White’s transformation into Heisenberg. —Jonathon Dornbush

Somewhere in Omaha, sticky dough is glopped onto an industrial countertop and slathered with cinnamon-sugar paste; unhurriedly, someone rolls up the dough and slices the roll into soon-to-be pastries. Tinny jukebox music plays. The viewer may be wondering what’s even happening here—but then there it is: that familiar head of thinning hair, peeking out over an employee visor. The opening sequence of Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul doesn’t explain why (or when) Saul Goodman is working in a Cinnabon, or why he’s so unsettled by his interactions with the customers there. But it does instantly reassure viewers that they’ve returned to the startlingly unglamorous, gloriously tactile universe of Breaking Bad. —Ashley Fetters

The opening sequence of this Emmy-winning comedy introduces our neurotic heroine, Liz Lemon, in the most Liz Lemon-y way possible—by having her fight with a stranger on the street about line etiquette. Within the first minute of the show, we understand two things about Liz: She loves hot dogs, and she’s all about following the rules. When a man rudely cuts in front of her at a hot dog stand, she stands up for herself and her fellow considerate customers, buying all of the hot dogs for herself—and the good people of New York. It’s the perfect segue into Jenna’s song-and-dance number, featuring her character Pam, the over-confident morbidly obese woman. —Megan Daley

Seven seasons in, Mad Men is famous for its lack of narrative exposition. But its first scene, in which a mysterious man sits in a smoky bar scribbling down ideas for cigarette slogans, reveals that Matthew Weiner’s 1960s drama wore its in medias res style confidently even at the very beginning. By way of introduction, Weiner offers only a definition of the term Mad Men and the telling detail that the ad execs themselves coined it—and to understand the world of Mad Men, that’s about all you need to know. —Ashley Fetters

Olivia Pope’s D.C. is full of lies, schemes, politics, murder, love, and lust—and it never stops. Olivia moves a mile a minute, which is why the opening scene of Scandal was the perfect introduction to her world. When Quinn makes her way to the bar to meet Harrison, she is immediately thrown into OPA’s fast-paced world of decision-making. After all, there’s no time to spare when you’re, as Harrison puts it, “a gladiator in a suit.” —Samantha Highfill

“No law at all in Deadwood,” says the condemned man. Sheriff Bullock’s having a nice chat with the prisoner. The man shot Bullock, but no hard feelings: “Flesh wound. Don’t look like it wants to infect.” We learn a little bit about the town of Deadwood—a place in Indian territory, in the midst of a gold boom. But then a few drunks from town come around, looking to execute the condemned man before his time. Instead, Bullock hangs the man on the jailhouse steps—an action which, in the show’s weird embryo-of-civilization logic, counts as a kindness. (Also, somebody says “c—sucker.”) —Darren Franich

Answer: Sarah Wynter. Question: Who is the first person to have sex in Sex and the City? Wynter’s a London gal newly arrived in NYC, and as narrated by Carrie Bradshaw, she lives a short story of romantic intrigue that completely destroys the Princess Myth and the New York Myth in just a few short minutes. “Nobody had told her about the end of love in Manhattan,” Carrie concludes. It’s a great beginning for a series that would destroy all the old romantic fables (while creating a few of its own.) —Darren Franich

How do you reboot a High Nerd saga about wacky robots and the sassy pilots who fought them? The 2003 miniseries starts things off somber—static shots of a remote space station, chyrons about a long-ago war and an “armistice.” Then, the punchline: The arrival of a beautiful woman, dressed in head-to-toe red. “Are you alive?” she asks. As she kisses the unsuspecting representative for the human race, an impossibly massive Cylon ship appears in the dark of space. Explosions ensue. —Darren Franich

The key to a good Hannibal Lecter project is making sure the audience cares about the non-cannibal characters. After all, Anthony Hopkins is onscreen for barely 16 minutes of The Silence of the Lambs; that’s Jodie Foster’s movie to carry. And similarly, if Bryan Fuller’s “Hannibal” was going to work, viewers needed to be invested in Hugh Dancy’s Will Graham. Luckily, the opening scene does a great job of establishing what’s interesting about him. Standing alone at a murder scene, Graham closes his eyes and uses the evidence to mentally re-create the murder, using himself as a stand-in for the killer. It’s so interesting and strange that we don’t care that Mads Mikkelsen’s eponymous villain doesn’t make his first appearance until 20 minutes in. —Christian Holub

In its first minute, Kingdom tells viewers everything they need to know about Alvey Kulina and the world he lives in, and it does so with very little dialogue. A show about a former mixed martial artist/father who now runs an MMA gym in Venice, Calif., Kingdom begins with Alvey on a run, pushing himself physically the way any professional athlete would. But when he comes across two gangsters who pull their guns on him, things appear to take a turn for the worse. That is until Alvey, completely unaffected by the dangerous situation, takes them both down with nothing but his fists, his head … and his knee. From there, he shakes it off and gets back to his run like nothing happened. Welcome to Kingdom. —Samantha Highfill

Six Feet Under is a show about death, so it’s fitting that a main character—the Fisher family’s patriarch, Nathaniel—dies in its first few minutes (while driving a brand-new hearse and singing along to “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”). Right away, the show establishes it’s not afraid to get dark—and that viewers are about to be immersed in the painful but fascinating world of the Fishers as they navigate grief and taking on Nathaniel’s funeral home responsibilities. —Ariana Bacle

It’s perhaps appropriate that the very first minutes of The Americans is something of a fake-out. Elizabeth, in a blond wig, is in seduction mode. As she effectively shuts up a man talking about the American way of life by going down on him, the drumbeat from Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk” begins to play. Cut to three days later: “Tusk” is still in the background, and Elizabeth, completely transformed, and Philip are attempting a capture. The scene is not only an intricate action sequence, perfectly scored—it also establishes who the Jennings are, what they do, how they do it, as well as their personal dynamic. Elizabeth is focused on completing the mission; Philip is slightly more humane. —Esther Zuckerman

“Les Revenants,” a French-made show about the dead inexplicably reappearing on earth, starts off mundane: The camera focuses on a teenage girl gloomily gazing out the window of a bus filled with other teenage kids. She looks out at the surrounding landscapes, gorgeous and serene. And then the bus veers off the road and crashes, effectively interrupting the calm. It’s incredibly jarring, yes, but also beautiful in a strange, morose way—just like the rest of the show. —Ariana Bacle

The first scene of The Wire isn’t particularly exciting; it’s just a conversation between Detective James McNulty and the man who saw Omar Isaiah Betts (“Snot Boogie”) get shot after ripping off a craps game—a habit of his. What makes it iconic, though, is the way it deftly serves as a thesis statement for the entire show by answering a single question: Why let Snot Boogie play a game everyone knew he would try to rob? “Got to,” says the witness, surprised McNulty even asked. “This America, man.” —Joshua Rivera

This opening is so successful because of what it doesn’t show. A series of characters—whom audiences will grow to love—are spotted at various, pedestrian moments in their days: at the gym, at a bar, on a plane, asleep in the office. But one message unites them all, when a man named Potus hits a tree. Except Potus turns out to be the POTUS, the President of the United States. And suddenly, the viewer realizes that the show’s stakes are anything but pedestrian. It’s a brilliantly executed opening that establishes signature characters and dialogue rhythms of The West Wing before even stepping foot into the White House. —Jonathon Dornbush

Night. The sound of a car crash. A dog yelping in agony. The squeal of burned rubber as the hit-and-run driver speeds away. Have no fear: good neighbor Frank Underwood is here. He bursts out of his brownstone, kneels by the dying dog, and, once alone, confides to the camera, “Moments like this require someone who will act, who will do the unpleasant thing—the necessary thing.” The message could not be more clear: Sometimes you have to strangle a poor puppy—or the Constitution—to do what’s necessary. —Jeff Labrecque