THE SIMPSONS - Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire

Ah, 'The Simpsons'. Inarguably one of the most important, influential and hilarious series of the 90s but one which has unfortunately stumbled on into the 21st century and nosedived in quality to an alarming degree. During the 90s it was inconceivable that I would ever stop watching 'The Simpsons' but after watching in horror as a realistic, well-rounded and emotionally involving satirical series about American working class family life transformed into a madcap, punchline-hungry melee of empty cynicism, celebrity cameos and deus ex machina endings I took a step back from the show. It's a refreshing but bittersweet experience then to return to 'The Simpsons' pilot episode and recall just how superb the show was for so many years. Although it was often retrospectively criticised as not being up to the quality of later seasons, the show's historic first season now looks comparatively fantastic and certainly groundbreaking. In its quest to create an animated series for primetime audiences, 'The Simpsons' tackled subjects rarely found in the children's shows that represented TV's major animated output of the time. Season one features episodes about marital infidelity, sexism and depression, a far cry from a series that would later feature episodes in which Homer is chased down the street by 'Sesame Street' characters or attacked by jockeys who turn out to be murderous elf-like creatures who live in their own underground lair.

There are several facts about 'The Simpsons' pilot episode 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire' that make it unusual. For one, it was not the first show to introduce its main characters to the world. The Simpson family had, in fact, appeared for the first time over two and a half years previously as the stars of short animated sequences incorporated into 'The Tracey Ullman Show'. Famously, these early shorts had an incredibly crude look to them but across the two years they ran, the characters evolved from grotesque doodles into something more akin to their later incarnations. While the shorts were reasonably popular, they weren't enough to make the Simpsons into household names so when the prospect of a full season of 22 minute stories presented itself, creator Matt Groening and his team knew that they would have to develop the characters into more engaging, realistic figures that could hold an audience's attention for a sitcom length episode. So 'The Simpsons' began with the advantage of having some semi-established characters in its pocket but with the challenge of making people love them and believe in them.

Another unusual thing about 'The Simpsons' pilot is that it is a Christmas special, a very rare occurrence for a series' first episode. This is down to the fact that 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire' was not intended to be the pilot and was actually the eighth episode produced. The original intention had been for 'Some Enchanted Evening', which eventually ended up being the season finale, to be the introductory episode but due to major problems with the animation for the episode (on viewing it, producer James L. Brooks reportedly responded "This is shit") it was put back and the scheduled autumn debut for the show was postponed for a couple of months. By chance, this meant that 'The Simpsons' first episode was eventually scheduled to air in mid-December and as a result the Christmas episode 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire' was brought forward to act as the season's opener. While 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire' is not the obvious choice for an opening gambit, it is a far more suitable choice than 'Some Enchanted Evening'. One of the major challenges 'The Simpsons' had ahead of it was to make the world take it seriously as a series intended for the whole family rather than a children's show and it is a challenge to which the first season scripts were more than equal but a couple of episodes do have slightly outlandish concepts which make them more akin to the broader writing of a kid's show. 'The Call of the Simpsons', for instance, finds the family stranded in the forest where Homer is mistaken for the missing link. 'Some Enchanted Evening' isn't quite so surreal but its plot about a wanted criminal being hired as a babysitter for the Simpson children is harder to swallow than most of season one's more grounded plots and, as such, would have made for an awkward introduction. Those animation problems with the episode may have been a blessing then, allowing for the superior 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire' to take the title of official Simpsons pilot.

Interestingly given its festive theme, 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire' is one of season one's most downbeat episodes, focusing as it does on the family's financial troubles and Homer's desperate attempts to not let a lack of money ruin Christmas. Opening with a well-observed sketch depicting a school Christmas pageant, the episode quickly darkens as Marge is forced to spend the family's Christmas fund on removing a forbidden tattoo from Bart's arm while Homer learns from his boss Mr. Burns (voiced here by Christopher Collins in one of only three appearances as the character, who was subsequently taken on by Harry Shearer) that he will not be receiving a holiday bonus. Determined not to upset his family and spurred on by his competitiveness with neighbour Ned Flanders (at this stage depicted with only one of his children and no wife), Homer hides the news and attempts to stretch what little money he has by buying substandard presents. Having stolen a Christmas tree from a nearby forest, Homer is then forced to take a job as a department store Santa but after receiving less pay than expected and being rumbled by his son, he drags Bart to the Springfield Dog Track in the hope of turning his $13 into a three figure amount. Having blown everything on a greyhound named Santa's Little Helper because he sensed a symbolic significance in the name, Homer and Bart return home to face the music with the abandoned dog in tow, only to find that the family are delighted with their new pet.

It's a sweet twist but it's a hell of a gruelling emotional journey to get there and 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire' pulls no punches, piling on the indignities as it moves in a downwards spiral towards the sleazy dog track of its final act. In Bart's speech about how a Christmas miracle will save the family in the same way it did for Tiny Tim, Charlie Brown and the Smurfs, 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire' aligns itself with a series of classic animated Christmas specials, closest in spirit to 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' with its melancholia and hopeful climax that introduces a note of festive sentiment without necessarily claiming to solve all its characters problems. A couple of moments of cartoonish levity are introduced, with Marge producing a jar of money from its hiding place in her hair and Bart having his tattoo removed by a laser that looks like it was bought at auction from a Bond villain, but for the most part 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire' draws its humour from the recognisable struggles of everyday life and the mounting desperation of Homer to find his way out of a hole which he wouldn't be in had he just been honest with his wife.

As the series progressed, Homer would become more selfish and strangely childlike but at this stage, he was a far more likable character, a little buffoonish but basically good hearted and devoted to his family. 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire' is very much a Homer-focused episode, with Bart playing a prominent supporting role and the rest of the family largely used as a plot device to drive Homer's quest forward. Lisa has a speech in which she eloquently requests that her Aunt Patty not put-down her father which may be the highlight of the whole episode and Marge has a funny letter-writing scene but ultimately these characters wouldn't come into their own until later in the season (The Marge and Lisa centric episodes 'Life on the Fast Lane' and 'Moaning Lisa' are the clear highlights of season one, with the former beating the also-nominated 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire' to win 'The Simpsons' its first Emmy Award). This imbalance in character focus has always led me to believe that episode four, 'There's No Disgrace Like Home', would have made a more appropriate pilot as it focuses on the family as a unit, even if their character traits are distinctly different from those displayed in later episodes.

Ultimately, 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire' does work as an adequate introduction to 'The Simpsons' and has become a much-loved staple of festive schedules but there's a sense that it would have been a more powerful episode if viewers were more familiar with the characters before seeing them go through such turmoil. Nevertheless, its subtly-realised downbeat atmosphere makes for a compelling and unusual experience and one of the creators' stated intensions was to carve out a unique style all of the series' own, which 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire' undoubtedly does. When 'The Simpsons' was pitched to the Fox network, executives were reportedly concerned over whether animated characters could hold a primetime audience's attention for 22 minutes. 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire' went a step further, proving that it could not only hold their attention, it could influence their mood.

TOP 20 - Although it is a landmark episode of a legendary series, 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire' is not quite successful enough in offering a representative glimpse of the show it introduces to merit inclusion on our top 20 list of the absolute cream of TV pilots. The quest continues...

FRIENDS - The Pilot aka The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate

There are several reasons why I've chosen David Crane and Marta Kauffman's sitcom 'Friends' as a starting point in my journey through TV's pilot episodes. For one, 'Friends' was one of the defining series of my youth, debuting when I was 12 years old and ending about a month before my 22nd birthday. It is also a rare show from the era which I watched from beginning to end on its original transmission. Before the days of streaming services and catch-up TV, it wasn't uncommon to stumble into a new series a few episodes late, maybe as a reaction to word-of-mouth or just a fluke of channel-hopping, but I distinctly remember tuning in for 'Friends' first episode at 9pm as part of Channel Four's Friday night comedy lineup. Another reason for choosing 'Friends' as a starting point is that it's recent appearance on Netflix has led to a re-evaluation by existing fans and fresh perspectives from a new generation who have found its frequent homophobia, occasional mean-spiritedness and often reprehensible characters to be distasteful in a more enlightened world. With these tensions still relatively current at the time of writing, the temptation to return to square one of this immensely popular phenomenon is too strong to resist. So let's take a look at 'The Pilot' or, as it was retrospectively rechristened, 'The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate'.

The first thing long-term 'Friends' fans will notice about 'The Pilot' is that it doesn't have a cold open. These little pre-credits sketches worked well with 'Friends' hanging-out concept but it was perhaps wise not to attempt one in the first episode. Instead, we launch straight into the iconic images of the six main characters dancing around a fountain to The Rembrandts' nauseatingly ubiquitous 90s hit 'I'll Be There For You'. It's a well chosen theme tune which highlights the theme of platonic comfort in the face of life crises which is so prominently featured in at least two of 'The Pilot's three plot strands. As the show itself begins, we immediately find ourselves in the famous Central Perk coffee house, one of 'Friends' main sets and the inspiration for the series' dreadful original title 'Insomnia Café'. Establishing its hanging-out vibe from the outset, the episode launches into a series of four small sketches that, while not hilarious, cleverly begin to delineate the dynamic between the characters while also dropping in some crucial pieces of information. The first sequence features Monica Gellar (Courtney Cox) being teased by Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry), Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc) and Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) about her upcoming date. Since dating and relationships are so central to 'Friends', it feels like the natural place to start. The subsequent sketch features Chandler recounting a Freudian nightmare he has had in which his penis has turned into a phone on which he receives a call from his mother. This establishes the extreme neuroses that would quickly come to define the character of Chandler and provide a reason for his constant defensive quipping. At this stage, this is unclear as Chandler is one of the less developed characters in 'The Pilot' but it's a useful piece of foreshadowing nonetheless.

Next we meet Ross Gellar (David Schwimmer), whom we learn is in the midst of a divorce from his recently-out lesbian wife Carol. This is the first major plot-point to be introduced and also the first warning sign of 'Friends' less-than-progressive attitude to homosexuality. In an attempt to have its coffee house muffin and devour it, 'Friends' would often flaunt its ancillary lesbian characters as a signal of its liberalness while also littering the script with loathsome one-liners based on the crudest of stereotypes. Tellingly, Joey's line "You really didn't know she was a lesbian?" gets one of the biggest laughs thus far, though it is unclear whether the joke is supposed to just be that Ross married a lesbian or that he wasn't aware of the fact, the faulty implication being that someone's sexuality should be obvious to all but the comically naïve. But the more offensive line comes later in the episode when Ross, reminiscing about his ex-wife's favourite brand of beer, says "She always drank it out the can. I should've known." That's pretty much the basic recipe for the rest of the million lesbian jokes you have to endure until Carol and her wife Susan are unceremoniously phased out of the series. Fortunately, that's the extent of the gay jokes in 'The Pilot'.

Back in Central Perk, we are introduced to the final and most iconic Friend, Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston), who gets a suitably grand debut as she dashes into the coffee house in a soaking wet wedding dress. This is another major plot-point as Rachel, we learn, has left her fiancé Barry at the altar because she doesn't love him. Her rejection of Barry is symbolic of a wider rejection of the empty socialite lifestyle on which her acceptance into the group is dependant and this journey from belle-of-the-ball to credit-cardless waitress is 'The Pilot's most compelling plot. This is chiefly down to Aniston who immediately demonstrates her superior comedic abilities in a subsequent scene in which she discusses her abortive engagement on the phone with her father ("Because I don't love him... Well it matters to me!"). As a newly pubescent boy, Rachel was always my favourite Friend for obvious reasons but revisiting the series (as I recently did in its entirety) it becomes clear that Aniston is a phenomenal comic actress and her turn as Rachel Green is a sitcom performance for the ages. Time and time again, she makes the funny stuff funnier and deftly wrings laughs out of the weaker material by virtue of her exceptional likability and naturalistic performance. Rachel is a role that could easily have been played as a broad, airheaded stereotype and there are certain moments in the writing that hint at that intention (her offhand demand for Sweet'n Low, for instance) but instead Aniston plays her as a much smarter character who has realised the vapidity of the life laid out for her and opted for something more fulfilling. Her comedy, then, comes not from a tired oblivious princess stereotype but from a determined woman in transition from pampered to independent. It appears from this first script that Aniston's take on the role may have significantly influenced where the character ultimately went.

Not every member of the cast starts as strongly as Aniston however. One thing that is instantly clear in 'The Pilot' is that several cast members are trying a wee bit too hard. In most cases, this is because their characters have yet to be given any strong material. Matthew Perry's Chandler is a mere wisecrack machine and he launches himself at the punchlines with a smugly gleeful force that would eventually become a trait of Chandler himself but which, at this stage, is very much Perry's own. Lisa Kudrow's Phoebe Buffay is featured significantly less than the rest of the cast, a problem which haunted the series for years as it became clear that, outside of isolated moments of kookiness, the writers had no idea what to do with this character. Phoebe's relative independence from the group became something of a running gag later down the line but here her presence seems baffling. Obviously instructed to play weird, Phoebe wanders through 'The Pilot' as if she's been struck on the head with a mallet, occasionally letting loose a non-sequitur and being regarded with similar bewilderment by her fellow cast members and the audience alike. Her one big moment in which she unleashes an unasked-for autobiography of her harsh, suicide-riddled youth and time living on the streets is perhaps 'The Pilot's strangest moment and, while the series continued to build on this backstory, it never really rang true. Its emergence here seems like a desperate attempt to justify Phoebe's presence by giving her something interesting to bring to the table but ends up being the only moment in the episode in which exposition is poorly handled.

Matt LeBlanc's Joey Tribbiani is the least defined character of all. When the writing for Joey was at its best, it delicately balanced his comparative lack of brain power with an endearing optimism, childlike joy and a sense of moral decency that often sat oddly with his sometimes-extreme misogyny. The latter is the only trait that makes an appearance in 'The Pilot', with his eagerness to attend a strip club scoring an easy but unearned laugh in the early scenes. More troublingly, Joey gets a longer speech in which he compares the various women now available to the newly-single Ross to flavours of ice cream, urging him to "grab a spoon". It's a poorly judged, insulting metaphor but 'The Pilot' treats it as actual, honest-to-goodness wisdom, even alluding to the speech in a final line from Ross that is meant to be moving and even garners a small ripple of applause. This reaction is testament to David Schwimmer's comparatively strong performance as Ross Gellar. To 21st century audiences, Ross has become one of 'Friends' major sticking points and as the series progresses he transmogrifies surprisingly quickly from a sympathetic, hangdog boy-next-door type to a wild-eyed, shrill maniac. Try watching 'The Pilot' back to back with an episode from several seasons down the line and you'll realise just how much the character and performance change over the years. I always preferred Ross in his more laidback early incarnation but as the character became more outlandish it did allow Schwimmer to demonstrate a flair for physical comedy. We see a glimpse of this in 'The Pilot' in an amusing bit of business involving an umbrella and Schwimmer also shines in his quiet, serious moment with Aniston at the end of the episode, which quietly but not over-insistently sets up the forthcoming will-they-won't-they plot that dominates the subsequent series. Like his fellow cast members, Schwimmer also oversells several of his punchlines but the extra screentime and emphasis given to Ross's story allows him to develop a more rounded creation by the end of the episode.

Finally, we have Courtney Cox as Monica Gellar. Cox was the most famous member of the cast when the pilot aired, having famously appeared in Bruce Springsteen's 'Dancing in the Dark' video and films including 'Cocoon: The Return' and 'Ace Ventura: Pet Detective' and she was originally asked to audition for the part of Rachel but felt she was a better fit for Monica and successfully auditioned for that role instead. Monica would eventually become 'Friends' most annoying character when the writers decided to magnify her Type A Personality quirks and Cox's performance, like Schwimmer's, got louder and more exaggerated as a result. It's a shame they chose to go this way because at this stage Cox gives the second best performance of the ensemble. In 'The Pilot', Monica feels like the de facto leader of the group, a level-headed force for good whose kindness and decisiveness are a major factor in setting Rachel on her route to independence. Cox and Schwimmer also make for extremely convincing siblings, making the thought of her playing the role of Rachel strangely creepy.

With six characters to introduce, you might expect 'The Pilot' to be light on plot but one thing that 'Friends' always did impressively was juggle multiple storylines within a 22 minute running time and this was a factor from the very beginning. Among the network's notes on the pilot script was a suggestion that one of the three plots should be given prominence but Crane and Kauffman were insistent that they all be given equal weight. So we get Rachel's first tentative steps towards independence alongside Ross's adjustment to the single life and Monica's date with "Paul the wine guy." The fluidity goes at least some way to disguising the fact that Monica's story is extremely flimsy and the threads are deftly woven together in a way that creates a refreshing forward motion without ever feeling choppy. Unfortunately the same can't be said for the editing, which has an awkward amateurishness to it which would disappear as the season progressed. At one point, Phoebe delivers a line while standing in the kitchen and the camera cuts to the seating area where Phoebe can be seen sitting and seemingly reacting to her own statement! The final payoff in which Chandler relates a second subtext-laden dream ("I'm in Las Vegas. I'm Liza Minnelli") is also cut together with an abruptness that steps on the joke, a weakness that is exacerbated by the fact that it is the climactic line.

Reviews for 'The Pilot' were mixed, with many critics commenting on the underdevelopment of several characters but singling out Schwimmer for especial praise and acknowledging the sheer amount of event packed into a short runtime. Strangely, a recurrent criticism was that 'Friends' was an inferior version of 'Seinfeld' when there is clearly no similarity between the two series beyond their New York settings. While 'Seinfeld' maintained its 'No Hugging, No Learning' mantra, 'Friends' is predicated on a warmth and sentimentality that could be one of its great strengths. This is clear in 'The Pilot' in the characters' ready acceptance of Rachel and in Joey and Chandler's attempts to support Ross through his divorce. If several of the Friends remain vaguely defined by the end, a sense of their connection is established more emphatically. Ultimately, 'The Pilot' is a very decent first episode which achieves its aim of making me want to continue watching.

TOP 20 - Sadly, though it has its strengths, 'The Pilot' falls some way short of consideration for the top 20 list. For now then, the quest continues to find our first truly great pilot episode.

First Impressions Mission Statement

How many times have you watched the first episode of a TV series, said "No, I don't like that" and decided not to continue with it. I know I've done it myself, only to later hear people raving about how brilliant the series in question is and wonder if I was a little hasty. After all, an opening episode has a hell of a lot of work it has to do. Not only does it have to engage us with its story and characters, it has to introduce us to those characters, their surroundings, their relationships with each other. If it's a comedy, it has to make us laugh with lines and situations that also define the characters enough to pique our interest in them. Often a storyline needs to build up to its most arresting moments in order to achieve the full impact but this relies on audiences being willing to come back for more so you have to give them something to grab onto right away.

TV pilot episodes must be a nightmare to write but they can be tough to watch too. A great pilot is able to comfortably introduce audiences to its characters and situation in a way that makes them begin to form bonds without even noticing it. A bad pilot can have the opposite effect though, leaving audiences confused and on edge, constantly asking questions like "Who's that guy again?" and drowning out some crucial piece of dialogue which then exacerbates the chaos. Sometimes pilots are bad because the necessary setup needed to manoeuvre the characters into the promising positions the series requires just isn't as ripe with comedic or dramatic potential as the destination. Maybe the producers, directors, writers and actors all know they can sell the premise once the pieces are in place but setting up the board is sometimes the hardest part of the game.

Pilot episodes are used to sell TV shows to Networks so as well as pleasing audiences, there is the added concern of convincing executives of the show's potential for success. It must be difficult to balance staying true to an original vision and accommodating Network expectations, not to mention battling against vapid demands to add a superfluous will-they-won't-they romance or a cloying animal sidekick into the mix. Sometimes pilot episodes include ill-advised characters or hints at plot threads that never come to pass because the show develops in a different way than first envisaged. Often characters who will go on to become beloved creations are markedly different from their later, better-known equivalents because the actors and writers are still working out exactly who the character is. The process of these kinks being worked out can be fascinating to watch and even more interesting to return to at a later date after a show has become a hit. Often you'll watch a series pilot and say "Wow, imagine what a different show it would have been if they'd kept heading in that direction!"

Whether good, bad or bizarre, I've always found pilots or first episodes compulsively interesting to return to and re-evaluate. Most exciting of all though is encountering a series opener that absolutely hits it out of the park; that does what the show does best while still in the process of introducing itself. Like an instantly charming dinner companion whose lack of nerves somehow instils an uncharacteristic confidence in you as well, terrific pilot episodes are few and far between. The mission of the First Impressions blog is to compile a list of the 20 greatest pilot episodes of all time. Only the absolute cream of the crop will make the list and after evaluating each episode I'll make a pronouncement on whether it has qualified for inclusion. At the end of each article we'll check on how the chart stands. If, by some miraculous turn of events, we compile a complete top 20, then shows will have to fight for a place in the chart at the expense of an existing title holder. In the process of compiling this list, I look forward to revisiting some of the greatest TV shows of all time and seeing if that greatness extends right back to their inception. I hope you'll join me.