The Greatest TV Pilots Of All Time

Game of Thrones

The wildly popular HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones started with an attention-grabbing pilot episode introducing the royal families who are competing for power in the fictional realm of Westeros. The pilot is the first and last time the sprawling cast are mostly in one place before they splinter off, which allowed the show to establish its massive world without too much confusion.

While the pilot that aired was a success, the un-aired pilot is a little-known fact about the creation of this legendary series. Showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff recounted why they had to redo the pilot to Vanity Fair: “Watching [screenwriter Craig Mazin and friends] watch the original pilot was one of the most painful experiences of my life. As soon as it finished, Craig said, ‘You guys have a massive problem… none of (our friends) realized that Jaime and Cersei were brother and sister, which is a major, major plot point that we had somehow failed to establish.” Benioff added, “I was taking notes and I had this yellow legal pad, and I just remembered writing in all caps ‘MASSIVE PROBLEM,’ and it’s all I could think about the rest of the night. Craig didn’t really have any great ideas except that he said ‘change everything.'”