Fleabag — 1x1

While fourth-wall breaks are often used in television for cheap comedic relief or lazy exposition, Waller-Bridge utilizes the device as a structural and psychological plot point.

The pilot doesn't ask you to like her; it asks you to look at her. By the time the episode concludes with Fleabag crying in the back of a taxi, admitting to her father that she knows she is a "greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical, depraved, morally bankrupt woman," the audience isn't repulsed—they are entirely hooked. Fleabag 1x1

Most TV pilots are clunky. They explain too much. They introduce backstory via wooden dialogue. Fleabag 1x1 does the opposite. It throws you into the deep end of a woman’s breakdown and trusts you to swim. While fourth-wall breaks are often used in television