The Babylon 5 pilot was actually an entire tv movie, and the extended edition was fun to watch. The pilot episode to Star Trek: The Next Generation was an epic 2-parter and a very interesting story that sticks with fans, even today.
I'd say that most popular tv shows had a good pilot episode. Otherwise, nobody would have continued to watch the show afterwards. There are exceptions to the rule, of course. Some tv shows improve after a few episodes, and the pilot kinda stank, but those are not common.
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fourlemons (1670)
25 days ago
I think maybe I've just seen an overabundance of shows that had kind of stinky pilots. 😂 The more I think about it, many of the shows I have streamed in the last few years have had very strong pilots. Maybe what makes a difference is whether or not the writers already have some sort of definite story arc planned where the pilot can feed strongly into it. For shows where the writers don't really know what they're doing with characters yet (which I have seen in some major network sitcoms) the pilot can sometimes feel a bit like the writers are throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.
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AmeriGirl26 (14381)
25 days ago
You should hear the doozy Gene Roddenberry had with the original Star Trek series and trying to launch it. He ended up having to make two pilots because the executives at the time (1966) thought that the first pilot was "too cerebral" for audiences, so it was not shown on tv until decades later. Meanwhile, the second pilot was pretty "cerebral" too, but it was dumbed down enough that it could work for everyday audiences, though it seemed to have an almost fantasy/supernatural flavor to it compared to some of the later episodes. But it got people's attention enough to start watching the show because the story was well-written.
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