Today, I’m asking you what TV character do you think had the all-time best introductory scene.
Pop Culture Theme Time is a feature where I put a question to you to see what you think about a particular theme. I might later revisit the theme for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns or Top Five.
A while back, I asked you to tell me what was the best introductory scene for a NEW character on to an established TV series, now I’m opening things up further and just saying “best introductory scene for a TV character period,” although I’d prefer we choose actual regular character (just in case a one-off character had a particularly good introduction).
This is obviously a tough category, but I’m going with Walter White on Breaking Bad. I mean, the sight of this dude driving an RV in a gas mask and his tighty-whiteys, crashing the RV, climbing out of the RV, recording a message to his family, then putting a shirt on and walking on to the road brandishing a gun, waiting for the police to arrive to arrest him? SO STRIKING!
Okay, that’s my pick. How about you?
Everyone, feel free to suggest future Pop Culture Theme Time topics to me at my new, much shorter e-mail, brian@poprefs.com!
I was trying to find Joel Fleischman’s or Chris’ first scenes on Northern Exposure because I feel like those might have been great (I can’t remember 30 years ago TV exactly) and couldn’t find them. I did find this great breaking the fourth wall scene on YouTube though! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoZHUDZN-pI
Al’s first scene from Quantum Leap is…not a winner.
I’m Larry, this is my brother Daryl and this is my other brother Daryl.
Nice one Chuck.
Brian I was actually wondering about Newhart the other day – how it was a a dream. Has that ever been done in any other series finales?
st Elaewhere implied the entire show was a Fantasy by Westphal’s autistic son.
I’d vote for Woody from Cheers. From the very first scene, Woody slid into the cast of a established show as if he belonged the whole time.
President Bartlett’s entrance 45 minutes into the first episode of The West Wing, quoting the First Commandment “I am the Lord….” — which is either pious, sacrilegious, or both, considering the circumstances, and solving the conflict as a Deus ex machina.
Faith on Buffy.