Any time I re-watch the pilot of “West Wing,” I realize how incredibly well-written it was. All of the early seasons, in fact.
Sharp, punchy, high-minded, subtle, fast-moving, and fresh.
And while some shows seem to want/need to tweak the essence of the main characters to help them find their equilibrium, it feels like “West Wing” S1:E1 was WYSYSIG for the next few years.
The first episode of The Wire was not my favourite, but it didn’t take too many more episodes to get sucked into the story.
Twin Peaks was off the charts great from the pilot onward.
This one is arguable, because the broadcast first episode was not the real first episode, and fox rearranged it so it made absolutely no sense to anyone, starting in effect a few episodes in.
I remember feeling sort of the same about Futurama. The first couple of episodes didn’t do much for me. I was amused but, if it wasn’t on right after the Simpsons, I probably wouldn’t have turned on the TV for it. After that, though, it surpassed the Simpsons in shows I was looking forward to. Didn’t take a couple seasons to get there though (and I agree that Peak Simpsons starts around Season 3+)
The Good Place was awesome from the start, and pretty much held up through the entire run.
Community took about half a season, but IIRC that was deliberate on the part of Dan Harmon - he pitched it to the network as a fairly standard sit-com and then slowly worked his magic.
Rick & Morty was extremely high quality from the beginning.
Batman: the Animated Series ditto.
Dead Like Me personally I didn’t care for it for at least 3 episodes. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but since it got cancelled after only two seasons that’s over 10% of the entire show. I still don’t like those first few episodes.
Agree 100%. I remember how great it was that first season. Have you re-watched it? How does it hold up now that every third show on Netflix and what feels like 85% of all current movies are superhero-related?
Lost
Taboo
Rick & Morty
All great from the first moment.
My current addiction is Misfits, but the first episode has cheesy CGI and the character setup and dialogue is a bit clumsy. Well worth sticking with it though.
Twin Peaks: The Return is the exact, evil opposite. Utter crap from the first second
The aforementioned Breaking Bad had me hooked from the first episode, as did The Americans.
Orange Is the New Black and Watchmen I thought were “meh” after the first episode, but managed to pull me in after a few more episodes.
I thought Disenchantment was just ok for about the first six episodes, but I thought it got better around the second half of season one (although from past threads I know there are some here who feel the opposite).
Queer as Folk, the American version, was amazing from the very first epsilon, in particular the start of the Brian/Justin plot.
An oldie but still a goodie, Soap definitely also started off hilarious.
Will and Grace definitely stumbled out of the gate and took a while to get going.
I happen to like Buffy season one, admittedly there are some clunkers in there, but each season has a few stinkers.
Lucifer was awesome from episode 1. There were a few klunker episodes, but not many, and even those were fun if you’re a fan.
The Good Place was wonderful from beginning to end.
I just watched the first episode of The Goldbergs last night, and I wasn’t impressed.
Funny, I came into the thread to post this one, and there it was in the OP. 
Justified hooked me not just in the first episode but in the first scene. Overall not on my list of the best of the best shows but pretty solid.
I think “Leverage” was great from day one.
The British version of Coupling was great from the beginning. Other UK shows that started with a bang were Misfits, Crazyhead and Green Wing
I completely agree with The Good Place. The only downer was as the show was winding down, but that’s because it was deliberately winding down, they planned (in advance) to end it so they had time to wrap up the story lines.
However, I disagree with Community. It’s one of my go to ‘what should I watch next’ shows. Specifically because it hits the ground running and doesn’t veer too much from it’s initial heading. I usually feel confidant telling people that if they don’t like the first episode, they’re not going to enjoy the show much, because it’s pretty much that…except more (and more meta).
The two that come to mind for me are:
-Better Off Ted. I usually refer to it as “Arrested Development Lite”, and not just because of Portia De Rossi. It has a similar style of comedy but it’s much more accessible, if that makes sense.
-Six Feet Under. Another one that hit the ground running. For those that don’t remember all the way back to the first episode, it was when Nate Sr gets killed, Nate Jr comes back and Claire just happened to try meth for the first time before hearing about this and now has to spend the rest of the day hanging out with her family while tweaking.
Wait, one more…
-Santa Clarita Diet. Timothy Olyphant married to the recently undead Drew Barrymore who struggles to find ways to eat human flesh without attracting too much attention. Really fucking funny show (and a ton of great actors throughout the series).
I’m going to say that the SciFi (Pre-syfy) original Farscape was amazing from the first episode. It’s not to say that season 1 didn’t have stumbles, or that every episode was amazing, but overall I was happy from beginning to end. Even when there were characters I disliked (I’m looking at you Noranti and Sikozu) I enjoyed watching almost every episode.
And for certain values of great I found that Invisible Man (I-Man) from SciFi was also amazing fun from the first episode. It’s premise wasn’t amazing, and many of the episodes were flat out goofy, but the cast/character interaction made it a personal favorite of mine.
When this thread winds down, maybe it’ll be time for a thread titled “Shows that hooked me in the first scene.”
For me, that was Orphan Black, Lupin, Altered Carbon, Arrested Development, Portlandia, Alias, Chuck, and Community. Still love them all, and am rewatching some of the older series.