Buffy - Pilot, "Welcome to the Hellmouth". I remembered the movie, and had grown up watching All My Children with my parents, so I totally hearted Sarah Michelle Gellar. And so I sat down and watched the first episode of a midseason replacement on a crappy little network called the WB. I loved it, but didn't expect it to last. Silly me.
Coupling - "Inferno". Don't get me wrong - the pilot was great. But it was this episode that made me realize this show would have a special little place in my right ventricle.
Trigun - Pilot, "The $$60 Billion Man". I bought the first dvd due to the following: a) the action figure looked cool, b) the theme song was neat, c) other people seemed to like it. Based on these, I expected an action series with a cool, serious main character. I got a comedy with a character who fled gunfire, crying, "MOMMY!!" I never turned back.
Sailor Moon - Jadeite in eternal sleep. I started watching the series in early R, where Rini (shutup) was there, but no one really knew who she was yada yada. Sometime around then, the series looped, and I got to see the first season. Most American cartoons don't have continuous storylines, so episodes don't have to run in any particular order. Hence, "I'll get you next time, Gadget! Next time!!" So after a few episodes of Queen Beryl telling she would put him in eternal sleep for his continued failures, she put Jadeite in eternal sleep. Whoa. And he wasn't out of it the next episode. Someone new was there to replace him. Though there was a lot of monster-of-the-day crap, somewhere underneath it all, there was a kindasorta storyline. Shutup. There really is.
Family Guy - Pilot. I stayed up after the Super Bowl for this, and I wasn't disappointed. It made me laugh until I cried.
Fawlty Towers - "The Germans". Nothing says comedy like a large British man with a head injury goose-stepping.
>^..^