"The Others" pilot episode is like many traditional "pilot" episodes that does what it feels it needs to do to get the audience interested in the rest of the show. It has the standard character introductions, background stories, and overall plot explanations to get the audience aquainted with the characters and their world. Usually I hate these kind of episodes because they typically never get into the "meat" of the show because they're too busy explaining everything, but this one is different. It manages to explain everything sufficiently without over-explaining (thus boring) the audience and still leaves room for a story that sets up some future episode's storylines. It also leaves plenty of character development and backstory to be used in later episodes to keep the audience intrigued about who these characters are and what caused them to become the people they are now.
Marian Kitt, as a potential new member of the group, is used as a window for the audience to look through to be introduced to the world of "The Others". As the other characters are explaining things to Marian the audience learns what the need to know to understand what's going on. There is still much Marian doesn't know at the end of the first episode which sets up the rest of the series as Marian understands more about her newfound powers and her new friends.
Even though this episode uses a lot of the standard "pilot" episode audience grabbers and story explanations is still manages to be very entertaining and intriguing, and gains interest from the audience to see more episodes.moreless
