September04

Grand Openings

What’s the first thing you see before a movie, or television show, starts? No, I’m not talking about the 17 commercials and trailers you see. I’m talking about the opening credits. Before the movie “Se7en” came out, I rarely paid attention to them... but since that movie, I try to acknowledge every opening sequence for every show I watch. In college, I wrote my senior thesis about the opening credits of movies and their effectiveness to establish mood and tone. Yeah, I know I’m a nerd, it’s a fascinating subject, though.

Over the past few years I’ve been obsessively addicted to certain tv shows, big shocker. Oddly enough, week-in and week-out, I choose to watch some opening credits and quickly fast-forward through others.

Ed
Foo Fighter song, or not (but the Foo-version is greatly preferred), this was one of the best, and shortest, opening credits ever. Really put me in the mood for the show.

Carnivale
Easily one of the most creative, and thought-out, title sequences I’ve seen in a long time. In fact, people liked it so much that HBO did a “behind the scenes” featurette on it. Really cool.

Entourage
Another Ed-like sequence, the song really gets you... err, me.

Rome
This is a new one, but interesting. I don’t know if I’ll continue to watch it every episode, though. HBO seems to have a problem with making opening sequences kind of similar (especially the music).

Lost
This is classified as a "realism" opening sequence. Aside from the bold and simple floating Lost title, the credits run at the bottom of the screen while the show is starting. No music, no fanciness. The producers want you to feel as if you’re a part of the show.

ER
This was once a fun sequence to watch, until nearly all of the stars were replaced with new ones. It was awesome to create something that contained good, heartfelt clips... but those are hard to re-create, especially when viewers don’t have huge emotional connections with the current stars.

Deadwood
I like the music and the scenery, but there’s something about it that I don’t really care to take part of.

Battlestar Galactica
This show has two openings, sort of. There’s the text-based explanation of the Cylons at the very beginning (which = good), then there’s the sorta cheesy sci-fi-styled real opening (which = bad). What’s worse, at the end of the real opening, there’s a 5-10 second montage of footage that’s going to happen in that very episode... who wants to see that?

Futurama
There’s the simple fact that it has two, or three, different things every time it runs. Plus, it’s one of the most complexly animated sequences ever and took many weeks to complete.

24
For as much shit as I’ve been giving this show lately, it has one of the better, and more distinguishable, sequences out there.

Aqua Teen Hungerforce
MY NAME IS...!!! Superb. (psssst! wanna know what the lyrics are?)

Desperate Housewives
This is one of the new-school arty sequences. I think it was influenced by titles like Carnivale, but I have no proof of it. However, I don’t usually partake in it.

The X-Files
The whistles! Awesome. The fact that it kept the same sequence even when the show had millions of production dollars... awesome. The fact that it changed when Duchovny was pretty much gone from the show... lame.

+ original post date: September 4, 2005 11:52 PM
+ categories: Television