This article contains references to suicide and stalking.
In the streaming age ushered in by Netflix, TV shows need to hook their audience right away. Now that viewers have countless other shows to choose from, if a series doesn’t grab them from the outset, they can just click off and find something else to watch. The first name in streaming, Netflix, has mastered that with the gripping first 10 minutes of original shows like Adolescence.
10
Wednesday
Netflix’s smash-hit Addams Family spinoff Wednesday got off to a morbidly hilarious start in its first episode. The first scene sets up the premise, explaining why Wednesday is kicked out of public school and has to go to monster-infested Nevermore Academy, but more importantly, it sets up the character of Wednesday herself.
Jenna Ortega’s take on the character arrived fully formed, and she’s instantly established as a twisted but lovable antihero. She exacts revenge on her brother Pugsley’s bullies by unleashing a swarm of piranhas into the pool they’re swimming in. With this opening, Tim Burton made it clear that he wouldn’t be toning down Charles Addams’ pitch-black humor for a Y.A. audience.
9
Narcos
The opening sequence of George Clooney’s favorite show Narcos drops you in at the deep end. It plunges its audience right into the cocaine-fueled Colombia of the ‘70s and the quest to bring down Pablo Escobar. With quick cuts, voiceover narration, moody cinematography, and an energetic soundtrack, Narcos almost feels like Martin Scorsese is directing the Medellín saga.
Within the first few minutes, we know who all the major players are, and we know the dangerous world they inhabit. Narcos doesn’t waste any time setting up its story and characters; it just throws the audience into the middle of it and leaves them to catch up. It’s a thrilling way to kick off a TV series.
8
Beef
Lee Sung Jin came up with an ingenious premise for his miniseries-turned-anthology show Beef. This tale of an intense feud between two people at the end of their rope starts off with a situation everyone can relate to: a road rage incident. In the first few minutes of the series, Steven Yeun and Ali Wong get into a ferocious argument behind the wheel.
Their road rage escalates into a car chase — and it still doesn’t end there. These two people are so fed up with their lives, and so frustrated and unfulfilled and resentful, that they decide to sink all their time and energy into destroying each other. The fact that it kicks off with such a mundane tiff makes it even funnier.
7
Ozark
In broad strokes, Ozark is essentially a Breaking Bad clone, swapping out the scorching deserts of New Mexico for the chilly, misty lakes of Missouri. It’s about a mild-mannered family man who discovers the monster within himself when he finds himself indebted to a Mexican drug cartel and gets swept up in a life of crime.
But from the opening minutes, you’ll see that it’s a very different show. It’s much colder in tone, and the lead antihero doesn’t dig his own grave like Walter White did. Marty Byrde only finds himself laundering $500 million for the cartel to make up for his unscrupulous business partner’s misdeeds — he’s literally his brother’s keeper.
6
Squid Game
Squid Game doesn’t waste any time setting up its juicy dystopian premise — and centering it around a protagonist who’s easy to root for. The first episode introduces us to down-on-his-luck Seong Gi-hun, who owes massive amounts to loan sharks and is about to lose his estranged daughter forever when she moves away with her stepdad.
In a state of desperation, Gi-hun takes a mysterious offer to play children’s games for money. This sets up the show’s twisted metaphor for the ruthless capitalist system. Gi-hun is sedated and wakes up with 455 other desperate people, each identified only by the numbers on their tracksuits; each similarly willing to debase themselves for some quick cash.
5
Baby Reindeer
Richard Gadd bares his soul in the semi-autobiographical series Baby Reindeer. He took the pain and trauma of a long history of abuse and psychological torment and turned it into one of TV’s best thrillers. Baby Reindeer is a haunting look at the horrors of stalking, as a bartender’s friendly gesture invites a dangerously obsessive woman into his life.
The series starts off in media res, as the bartender, Donny, reports his stalker, Martha, to the police. The police ask why he waited so long to report her, and the show cuts back six months to show how this whole complicated case came together. The cold open hooks you right away, because you know this burgeoning friendship is headed for disaster.
4
Mindhunter
The opening scene of David Fincher’s Mindhunter pilot perfectly sets up the show’s dark tone, period setting, and subject matter. It sees FBI special agent Holden Ford negotiating a hostage situation involving a gunman named Cody Miller in 1977. While Ford successfully saves the hostage’s life, he fails to prevent Miller from taking his own.
This scene introduces viewers to the kind of lurid, grisly material they can expect in the series, but it also sets up the core theme of the story. Mindhunter isn’t just a who’s-who of infamous serial killers; it’s a psychological study of the mental toll of Ford’s gruesome work. This shocking opening establishes just how disturbing his work can get.
3
Dark
The German thriller series Dark is the closest TV has gotten to replicating the bizarre magic of Twin Peaks. Much like David Lynch and Mark Frost’s cult classic, Dark is a small-town soap opera with a supernatural twist. It works so well because the interpersonal conflicts between the characters are just as compelling as any of the sci-fi or horror elements.
In the first few minutes, we see a woman covering up her son’s suicide, two married people having an affair, and a kid being released from a psychiatric hospital, returning to school, and finding that his crush has fallen for his best friend. Dark hooks you in long before it introduces the time-traveling cave.
2
Stranger Things
The Duffer brothers perfected their unique combination of influences from the outset in Stranger Things’ pilot episode. In the opening minutes, we see a monster escape from an underground lab in Hawkins, we see a group of geeky kids playing a D&D campaign, and we see one of them get abducted by a mysterious unseen entity.
Not only does this opening sequence hook viewers on a narrative level; it also sets the exact right mood. It has the warm nostalgia and endearing young cast of Amblin classics like E.T. and The Goonies. It has the ominous atmosphere and small-town terror of Stephen King and John Carpenter, and it has the mind-bending sci-fi conspiracy of Altered States.
1
Adolescence
Within the first 10 minutes of Adolescence, a team of heavily armed police officers descend upon a seemingly normal suburban home, bust down the front door, hold the family inside at gunpoint, and arrest 13-year-old Jamie Miller on suspicion of murder. It leaves you with a bunch of questions you can’t wait to have answered — namely, could this terrified child actually have killed someone?
It’s also a perfect introduction to the show’s unique filming style. Every episode of Adolescence is shot entirely in one continuous take, so it feels a lot more immersive and real than 99% of other TV dramas. When you watch the opening police raid, it feels like you’re actually there, experiencing that intensity first-hand.
