Every TV show needs a compelling opening scene to grab their audience’s attention. From Rick Grimes killing an undead child in The Walking Dead to Jack Shephard racing through the fiery wreckage of a plane crash in Lost, these opening scenes had us hooked on their shows from the jump.
20
House Of Cards
Frank Kills A Dog
The quickest way to make an audience hate a character is to have them kill a dog. In the opening scene of House of Cards, after Frank Underwood’s neighbor’s dog is hit by a car, he comes out into the street and calmly strangles it to death. This immediately established just how cold and uncaring Frank is.
19
Game Of Thrones
Meet The White Walkers
In the opening moments of Game of Thrones, Night’s Watch rangers discover the demonic White Walkers and a bunch of wildlings who have been turned into zombies, and only one ranger lives to tell the tale. Even viewers who went into Game of Thrones with no idea what to expect and no previous proclivity for the fantasy genre were hooked by this opening scene.
18
Mad Men
Don Brainstorms A Cigarette Pitch
The opening scene of Mad Men isn’t quite as grabby as some of the other entries on this list, but it instantly immerses us in the ‘60s setting and the world of Don Draper. We see Don sitting alone in a bar lounge, struggling to figure out a way to advertise cigarettes after the dangers of smoking have been discovered.
17
The Leftovers
The Sudden Departure
The opening scene of The Leftovers set up the context of the Sudden Departure and the overall eerie atmosphere of the series beautifully. As a woman’s baby mysteriously vanishes, we hear several 911 calls juxtaposed, reporting similar bizarre disappearances. This sequence deftly set up the premise of the show and the in-universe confusion surrounding it.
16
Futurama
Fry Is Frozen
Matt Groening’s highly anticipated follow-up to The Simpsons set itself apart right off the bat by flinging us into the distant future. Pizza delivery boy Philip J. Fry drops off a pie at a cryogenic lab, tumbles into a cryo pod, and gets unwittingly frozen for a full millennium. When he’s thawed out in the year 3000, the show is in full swing.
15
Better Call Saul
Working At Cinnabon
The opening scene of Better Call Saul turned a throwaway line from Breaking Bad into a major plot point. We’re reintroduced to Saul Goodman in dreary black-and-white; he’s in hiding, working as the manager of a Cinnabon in Nebraska under an assumed identity. Every night, he relives his glory days by watching VHS tapes of his old commercials.
Before the spinoff series delved into Saul’s backstory, it showed us where he ended up after Breaking Bad. This set up a tradition of every season opening with a black-and-white prologue catching up with Saul in hiding, with the law slowly closing in. This established Saul’s miserable fate before going back to see how he got there.
14
Dexter
Dexter’s First Kill
In the first few minutes of Dexter, we see how the titular vigilante operates. Dexter stalks, kidnaps, berates, and eventually kills a local pastor who’s been murdering young boys. He then takes a sample of the man’s blood and adds it to his collection, all while his voiceover narration explains his incessant need to kill and his twisted moral code.
This immediately introduced Dexter as a unique kind of antihero: a serial killer who only kills other serial killers. It shows us how he hides his secret double life, and the “dark passenger” that forms the dramatic backbone of the series.
13
Six Feet Under
Nathaniel Fisher’s Death
A great opening scene has to succinctly set up the premise of the show, and the first few minutes of Six Feet Under did just that. Nathaniel Fisher is driving his new hearse on Christmas Eve when he’s suddenly rammed and killed by a bus.
This established that the family would have to run the funeral business without him, as well as the series’ morbid obsession with death. Every subsequent episode would begin with a similarly untimely demise that the Fishers would have to commemorate with a memorial service.
12
The Last Of Us
A Haunting Talk Show
The Last of Us’ opening Dick Cavett-style talk show sequence set the perfect unsettling mood for the series that followed. John Hannah’s epidemiologist ominously sets the stage for the Cordyceps outbreak by tying it to climate change and hammering home just how devastating a fungal pandemic would be. This opening scene establishes the tone, atmosphere, and the basis of the mythology.
11
The Twilight Zone
Where Is Everybody?
The first episode of The Twilight Zone begins with a simple but terrifying premise: a man wakes up in an empty town and can’t figure out where everyone went. This instantly established what would make Rod Serling’s creepy anthology such a classic. It’s in that simplicity that Serling crafted his most effective scares, and delivered his most poignant social commentary.
