It's a symptom of a bigger problem... it seems the episodes were tempered with in 2013.

I think the pilot should be moved to the specials (with the right air date). Any objection? @Paszt?

ITV and PBS present the DVDs collection with the pilot included with the 1st season, as an overall single set, though the pilot didn't originally air collectively with that season. The series, overall, is always stated/indicated to have begun in 2006.

I think such a premature pilot should be split in specials indeed.

I did the same for https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/25620-the-new-statesman/seasons

Maybe it's different though, as it was aired as a limited/miniseries, and with two cast members being switched.

The pilot does include all the identical regular cast members as does Season 1 and onward. Kevin Whately, Laurence Fox, Clare Holman, and Rebecca Front were always series regulars from the very beginning (starting with the pilot).

Incidentally, this was a spin-off series from the earlier Inspector Morse series, thus established cast members from that series carried over to this one.

Can we find any info on wether the success of the pilot influenced wether or not the spin-off series would actually be created, because if that's the case I think it's a special. If they were all produced at the same time it can be considered a very early first episode, maybe?

// EDIT: Maybe, because they especially mention "Pilot and Series 1/season1/whatever" in releases, we should consider it seperate, or idk... otherwise it would just be included in series 1/season1 right? MEH

I think the only thing that matter is: Did 'Whom the Gods Would Destroy' originally aired on ITV as 1x01 or 1x02? I didn't find a proper web archive, but a) the pilot aired a year earlier (it looks like a typical UK TV movie/pilot) and b) the pilot is currently not part of first season https://www.itv.com/hub/lewis/9Da13068

edit: I couldn't find much. It is referred to as a one-off by a few newspapers and this is allegedly the press release for the first season.

It gets confusing as, in the States, two early UK seasons (I don't remember precisely which ones) were combined into a single expanded US season, then also released on DVD that way in the US. Thereafter, all US seasons remained numbered one behind the UK.

Yes - as I understand it, the pilot was a hit when it aired, as it already had an established audience of carry-over fans of the by-then concluded very popular Inspector Morse series. So when the Lewis pilot aired, it was as more or less a "what happens next" sequel to the Morse series (the Lewis character having been Morse's lead assistant) that had ended about five years earlier:

https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/3476-inspector-morse

UPDATE: Now several hours later, I've just done some sleuthing and - to clarify what I mentioned above - it was UK Season 2 and part of UK Season 3 that got combined together for US PBS airing and DVD presentation. The seven episodes that were presented/sold as "Series 2" in the States aired in the UK as the complete 4-episodes Series 2 and three episodes of (from fully 4 eps.) UK Series 3. Then, in the US, the one leftover ("Counter Culture Blues") episode from UK Series 3 was presented as Episode 1 of expanded 5-episodes US "Series 3" (that otherwise consisted of the UK's four Series 4 episodes). Quite confusing!