Pilots are the first and most essential steps in creating a show. They must entice potential viewers while introducing characters, setting up plotlines, and conveying the overall feel of what is to come with future episodes. It can be challenging for even experienced producers—many television series never make it past their pilots due to subpar writing or simply not connecting with viewer interests.
Related: 10 Best Series Finales of All Time, Ranked by Viewers
But when done right, pilot episodes become iconic flag-bearers for entire TV shows; IMDb users have rated some highly among their all-time favorites. From intense action sequences to humor that sets the tone early on (think Friends), great pilots will always stay burnt into our memories as we look forward to more exciting adventures within any given story universe.
These are viewers’ all-time favorite TV series pilots as of 2023.
Top 10 Best TV Pilots According to IMDb...
Related: 10 Best Series Finales of All Time, Ranked by Viewers
But when done right, pilot episodes become iconic flag-bearers for entire TV shows; IMDb users have rated some highly among their all-time favorites. From intense action sequences to humor that sets the tone early on (think Friends), great pilots will always stay burnt into our memories as we look forward to more exciting adventures within any given story universe.
These are viewers’ all-time favorite TV series pilots as of 2023.
Top 10 Best TV Pilots According to IMDb...
- 4/8/2023
- by Buddy TV
- buddytv.com
In the second-most-overblown scene from HBO’s oppressively/gloriously overblown dramedy The Newsroom, Will McAvoy refuses — because he’s a time-traveler from the future with 20/20 hindsight on all things — to go along with the prevailing media narrative in the aftermath of the 2011 shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. He boldly declares, “A doctor pronounces her dead, not the news!”
That’s the way I feel about everybody associated with Ted Lasso hinting at the idea that the show’s upcoming third season will also be its last. Sure, star and co-creator Jason Sudeikis may be telling everybody that they’ve finished the story they set out to tell, but the soccer comedy feels too valuable for Apple TV+ to surrender without a fight, or at least promotional hype. Until the first ad arrives calling this “the third and final season,” I assume that backroom negotiations are ongoing.
Still, based on the four episodes sent to critics,...
That’s the way I feel about everybody associated with Ted Lasso hinting at the idea that the show’s upcoming third season will also be its last. Sure, star and co-creator Jason Sudeikis may be telling everybody that they’ve finished the story they set out to tell, but the soccer comedy feels too valuable for Apple TV+ to surrender without a fight, or at least promotional hype. Until the first ad arrives calling this “the third and final season,” I assume that backroom negotiations are ongoing.
Still, based on the four episodes sent to critics,...
- 3/10/2023
- by Daniel Fienberg
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Actor Jeff Daniels had a lead role in Aaron Sorkin’s Newsroom TV series. But before Daniels was recruited, Sorkin doubted the actor’s ability to portray the character the showrunner had in mind.
This led to Daniels going to extreme lengths to secure his part.
Jeff Daniels once credited ‘The Newsroom’ for saving his career Jeff Daniels | Nathan Congleton/Getty Images
In 2012, Sorkin returned to the world of television with his HBO series The Newsroom. Unlike Sorkin’s The West Wing, which focused on politics, Newsroom had a cable news network at the center of its story. Daniels played editor and anchor Will McAvoy who managed the fictional News Night television program. He was surrounded by a cast of other well-known actors like Emily Mortimer, Alison Pill and Olivia Munn.
The Will McAvoy role was right up Daniels’ alley at the time. Although he’d already established an iconic film career for himself,...
This led to Daniels going to extreme lengths to secure his part.
Jeff Daniels once credited ‘The Newsroom’ for saving his career Jeff Daniels | Nathan Congleton/Getty Images
In 2012, Sorkin returned to the world of television with his HBO series The Newsroom. Unlike Sorkin’s The West Wing, which focused on politics, Newsroom had a cable news network at the center of its story. Daniels played editor and anchor Will McAvoy who managed the fictional News Night television program. He was surrounded by a cast of other well-known actors like Emily Mortimer, Alison Pill and Olivia Munn.
The Will McAvoy role was right up Daniels’ alley at the time. Although he’d already established an iconic film career for himself,...
- 3/7/2023
- by Antonio Stallings
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
For three seasons, "The Newsroom" walked the slimmest of tightropes as an idealistic drama about the teams behind broadcast news. On the one hand, it needed to balance the hefty cynicism directed at media networks for their blatant partisanship and ivory-tower elitism (which it attempted to do by shaping news stories both behind the scenes and in front of a teleprompter). But the show also needed its characters to be convincingly altruistic without coming across as frustratingly naive or, perhaps worse, condescendingly didactic.
Finding such sweet spots in high-tension drama and humanistic optimism has long been creator Aaron Sorkin's bread and butter as both screenwriter and director -- from "A Few Good Men" and "Charlie Wilson's War" to the "Trial of the Chicago 7" and, of course, "The West Wing." He's even been known to dip out of politics to examine everything from underdog baseball teams to deeply-flawed tech giant...
Finding such sweet spots in high-tension drama and humanistic optimism has long been creator Aaron Sorkin's bread and butter as both screenwriter and director -- from "A Few Good Men" and "Charlie Wilson's War" to the "Trial of the Chicago 7" and, of course, "The West Wing." He's even been known to dip out of politics to examine everything from underdog baseball teams to deeply-flawed tech giant...
- 12/4/2022
- by Steven Ward
- Slash Film
Today, Academy Award-winning writer Aaron Sorkin is known for creating complex characters who steal the hearts of viewers with witty dialogue and inspiring speeches. He's the man behind Jack Nicholson's declaration, "You can't handle the truth," and Will McAvoy's assertion that "America is not the greatest country in the world anymore." These days, Sorkin's ability to entertain an audience with the everyday lives of sportscasters, news anchors, and senior White House staff is above reproach, but that wasn't the case 24 years ago.
Since 2016, the world has been keeping a very close, no-nonsense eye on the political landscape, and The White House, but not so long ago it was all considered a big joke. In January 1998, the world was shaken when The Drudge Report revealed that President Bill Clinton was having an affair with a young White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Suddenly, the highest office in the land was...
Since 2016, the world has been keeping a very close, no-nonsense eye on the political landscape, and The White House, but not so long ago it was all considered a big joke. In January 1998, the world was shaken when The Drudge Report revealed that President Bill Clinton was having an affair with a young White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Suddenly, the highest office in the land was...
- 11/23/2022
- by Christian Gainey
- Slash Film
After taking us behind the scenes of the White House with The West Wing and behind the scenes of a TV show with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Aaron Sorkin explored both politics and showbiz with The Newsroom, the HBO drama that premiered 10 years ago, on June 24, 2012. Jeff Daniels earned an Emmy Award for his performance as Will McAvoy, the anchor of the News Night program on Atlantis Cable News network, and a man perennially on the verge of a preachy breakdown. Meanwhile, Emily Mortimer played MacKenzie McHale, Will’s ex-turned-executive producer, and Sam Waterston played Charlie Skinner, president of Acn. Dev Patel, Olivia Munn, Alison Pill, Thomas Sadoski, and John Gallagher Jr. rounded out the cast, playing Acn staffers. To celebrate the show’s 10th anniversary, we’re highlighting the top 10 episodes of the series, as chosen by IMDb users, with representative reviews from that site singing these episodes’ praises.
- 6/24/2022
- TV Insider
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