The 2000s

Breaking Bad

2008–2013·AMC·Drama

Twenty seconds of chemistry-set smoke and floating element symbols. Almost aggressively short, which leaves the cold open to do the work.

• Seasons 1–5

Grey's Anatomy

2005–·ABC·Drama

Twenty-seven seconds of surgical instruments and a guitar figure, from a series that has now outlived most of the shows that copied it.

• Season 1

Dexter

2006–2013·Showtime·Crime

Breakfast filmed as though it were a murder. A mosquito swatted, a blood orange crushed, a shaving nick, a steak sliced, floss drawn tight — every shot of an ordinary morning framed exactly as the violence the show never puts on screen this early.

• Seasons 1–8

The Big Bang Theory

2007–2019·CBS·Comedy

Fourteen billion years of natural history in twenty-three seconds, flashing past at one image per beat.

• Season 1

Malcolm in the Middle

2000–2006·Fox·Comedy

They Might Be Giants' 'Boss of Me' over archive film of chaos — falling, crashing and general misadventure, cut faster than a network comedy usually dares.

• Season 1

The Office

2005–2013·NBC·Comedy

Scranton, a car park and a filing cabinet, shot like stock footage for a regional business — twenty-two seconds that promise nothing will happen.

• Season 1

Scrubs

2001–2010·NBC / ABC·Comedy

Twelve seconds, an X-ray and a guitar — a medical comedy that spends less time on titles than most shows spend on a network ident.

• Season 1

Mad Men

2007–2015·AMC·Drama

A silhouetted adman falls past skyscrapers built out of his own advertising — smiling wives, stockinged legs, a hand holding a drink — and then, at the bottom, is sitting comfortably with a cigarette. Nobody lands. That is the joke and the thesis.

• Seasons 1–7

Gilmore Girls

2000–2007·The WB / The CW·Drama

Carole King's 'Where You Lead' rewritten as a mother-and-daughter duet, over a small Connecticut town in every season at once.

• Season 1

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

2005–·FX / FXX·Comedy

Photographs of Philadelphia over a jaunty public-domain waltz, with the episode's absurd title card dropped into the middle of it.

• Seasons 2–4

House

2004–2012·Fox·Drama

Anatomical illustration and MRI imagery over Massive Attack's 'Teardrop' — a diagnostic show that opens by looking inside a body rather than at one.

• Season 8
• Season 1

Supernatural

2005–2020·The WB / The CW·Horror

Fifteen years without an opening title sequence, and fifteen distinct title cards instead — a few seconds of the show's name, restyled from scratch every season to match what that year was about. The shortest main titles on this site, and the ones that changed the most.

• Seasons 1–15

The Wire

2002–2008·HBO·Crime

The same song recorded five different ways. Every season re-cuts the images and hands 'Way Down in the Hole' to a new artist, matching the institution that season is about.

• Season 1
• Season 2
• Season 3
• and 2 more

NCIS

2003–·CBS·Crime

Naval insignia, photographs and a snare roll, refreshed periodically as a cast that has now turned over almost completely came and went.

• Season 10
• Season 1

Modern Family

2009–2020·ABC·Comedy

Fourteen seconds of family photographs sliding into place, and a card. Nothing else.

• Season 1

Avatar: The Last Airbender

2005–2008·Nickelodeon·Animation

Four elements demonstrated in turn by four benders, then a narrated history — a world explained completely in about a minute, every week.

• Season 1

The Middle

2009–2018·ABC·Comedy

An Indiana family with no money and no prospects, nine seasons long.

• Season 1

Two and a Half Men

2003–2015·CBS·Comedy

Twelve seasons on a Malibu beach house, opened by four sung syllables.

• Season 6

Survivor

2000–·CBS·Documentary

The competition format that rebuilt American primetime, and rebuilds its titles for every location.

• Season 1
• Season 50

The Vampire Diaries

2009–2017·The CW·Horror

Forty-eight seconds of Mystic Falls in fog, with the cast cards rebuilt every season around a body count that never stopped rising.

• Season 1

The Mentalist

2008–2015·CBS·Crime

A red smiley face drawn in blood, which is the whole of the series' mythology compressed into one image.

• Season 1

Smallville

2001–2011·The WB / The CW·Sci-Fi

Remy Zero's 'Save Me' over a cast that changed almost completely across ten years, with the credits rebuilt around each departure.

• Season 1

Desperate Housewives

2004–2012·ABC·Drama

Art history restaged as domestic comedy — Cranach's Eve, Egyptian tomb painting, American Gothic — each one collapsing under a woman's exasperation.

• Season 1

Lost

2004–2010·ABC·Drama

One word, drifting slowly out of the dark towards the camera, over a low tone that is barely a piece of music. Fifteen seconds, no cast, no footage — the cheapest main title of any network drama of its size, and the most imitated.

• Seasons 1–6

Curb Your Enthusiasm

2000–2024·HBO·Comedy

A tuba, a circus march, and nothing else. Twenty-four years and twelve seasons on a piece of production-library music picked because it sounded like a man walking into trouble.

• Seasons 1–12

How I Met Your Mother

2005–2014·CBS·Comedy

Fourteen seconds of photographs and a ukulele — a nine-year story introduced by a handful of snapshots.

• Season 1

Sons of Anarchy

2008–2014·FX·Crime

Leather, chrome and a reaper patch, over a theme re-recorded by a different artist as the club's situation deteriorates.

• Season 1
• Season 7

Parks and Recreation

2009–2020·NBC·Comedy

Pawnee's municipal signage and a brass fanfare, pitched at exactly the level of civic pride the show's protagonist has for a mid-sized Indiana town.

• Seasons 1–7

Bones

2005–2017·Fox·Crime

Skeletal reconstruction rendered as clean laboratory graphics — a procedural that opens on anatomy rather than crime.

• Season 2

Arrested Development

2003–2019·Fox / Netflix·Comedy

A ukulele, a narrator, and a family photograph that gets less flattering the longer you look at it.

• Season 1

Firefly

2002·Fox·Sci-Fi

A slide guitar and a weary blues vocal over a spaceship. Sonny Rhodes sings words the show's creator wrote, and the argument of the whole series — that this is a western that happens to be in orbit — is settled before a line of dialogue is spoken.

• Season 1

One Tree Hill

2003–2012·The WB / The CW·Drama

Gavin DeGraw's 'I Don't Want to Be' over a small North Carolina town, re-cut every season until the show dropped the sequence entirely.

• Seasons 1–4

Community

2009–2015·NBC / Yahoo·Comedy

Study-group detritus on a table, in a show that spent six seasons abandoning its own format for whatever genre it fancied that week.

• Season 1

Veronica Mars

2004–2019·UPN / The CW / Hulu·Crime

The Dandy Warhols over surveillance photographs and a Californian beach town that is much worse than it looks.

• Season 1

Prison Break

2005–2017·Fox·Drama

Blueprints and tattoo ink treated as the same document — which, for this show's premise, they are.

• Season 1

Castle

2009–2016·ABC·Crime

Typewriter keys and New York, for a series about a novelist who follows a detective around.

• Season 2

Hell's Kitchen

2005–·Fox·Documentary

Flames, a skull made of a chef's hat, and Gordon Ramsay shouting — the titles tell you exactly what the hour is.

• Season 1

Everwood

2002–2006·The WB·Drama

A New York surgeon moving his family to a Colorado mountain town after his wife's death.

• Season 1

Phineas and Ferb

2007–2015·Disney Channel·Animation

A theme that lists everything the characters intend to build over the summer, at a tempo that leaves no room to breathe.

• Season 1

Six Feet Under

2001–2005·HBO·Drama

Digital Kitchen's procession of small deaths: hands letting go, a crow on a wire, a hearse, feet on a mortuary table. It won the Emmy and set the template most prestige-drama openings still follow.

• Seasons 1–5

RuPaul's Drag Race

2009–·Logo / VH1 / MTV·Documentary

Eighteen seconds that get remade every season — new logo treatment, new track, new set of queens.

• Season 1

24

2001–2010·Fox·Drama

A ticking clock and a card, and nothing else. For a series whose entire conceit is that time is passing, spending a minute on titles would have been the one unforgivable thing.

• Season 1

True Blood

2008–2014·HBO·Horror

Digital Kitchen again, and their nastiest work: swamp water, roadkill, a revival tent, a child in a Klan hood, all cut to Jace Everett's 'Bad Things'. It promises a show about the South rather than a show about vampires.

• Seasons 1–7

The O.C.

2003–2007·Fox·Drama

Phantom Planet's 'California' over Newport Beach, in thirty-two seconds that sold an entire idea of southern California to a generation.

• Season 1

Nurse Jackie

2009–2015·Showtime·Comedy

Hospital corridors and pills, filmed with the brightness of a pharmaceutical advertisement.

• Season 1

Heroes

2006–2010·NBC·Sci-Fi

An eclipse and a card, in twelve seconds. The restraint is the point — a superhero show refusing to open like one.

• Season 1

American Idol

2002–·Fox / ABC·Documentary

The talent format that ran American primetime for a decade, opening on a spotlight and a logo that spins.

• Season 1

Deadwood

2004–2006·HBO·Drama

A horse, mud, and a camp being built out of both. The sequence is almost entirely animals and construction — the town assembling itself while nobody is watching.

• Seasons 1–3

30 Rock

2006–2013·NBC·Comedy

Nineteen seconds of Art Deco signage and a brass sting, moving at roughly the speed the show's dialogue does.

• Season 1

Top Gear

2002–·BBC Two·Documentary

Twenty-one seconds of engine noise and a rock riff — a motoring programme that opens like a trailer for itself.

• Season 1
• Season 23

American Dad!

2005–·Fox / TBS·Animation

A CIA agent singing about his morning routine, in a sequence that varies its final line to suit the episode.

• Season 1

Glee

2009–2015·Fox·Comedy

An Ohio show choir, and the series that briefly made network television a singles chart.

• Season 1

Fringe

2008–2013·Fox·Sci-Fi

Pseudo-scientific terms floating in coloured fog — and the colour is the plot: the palette changes to tell you which universe or era the episode is set in.

• Season 1
• Season 4
• Season 5

Skins

2007–2013·E4·Drama

A new cast every two series, and a new title sequence with them — the show rebuilt itself from scratch twice and the openings track it.

• Seasons 1–4

Friday Night Lights

2006–2011·NBC·Drama

Explosions in the Sky over Texas fields and floodlights — a football show whose titles are almost entirely landscape and weather.

• Season 1

The Tudors

2007–2010·Showtime·Drama

Henry VIII played young and handsome for four seasons, opened by a montage of everything the reign would cost.

• Season 1

The Boondocks

2005–2014·Adult Swim·Animation

Aaron McGruder's strip animated in an anime register, opened by Asheru's theme over ink-wash stills.

• Season 1

Naruto Shippuden

2007–2017·TV Tokyo·Animation

Twenty distinct openings across a decade, changed roughly every cour — one of the largest rotations of title sequences any series has produced.

• Season 1

Southland

2009–2013·NBC / TNT·Crime

Los Angeles patrol work shot like documentary, dropped by NBC and picked up by TNT.

• Season 1

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

2000–2015·CBS·Crime

The Who over forensic macro photography, and the sequence that turned laboratory work into prime-time spectacle for a decade.

• Season 1

Rome

2005–2007·HBO·Drama

Graffiti coming alive on Roman walls — painted figures fighting, coupling and marching across plaster while the camera tracks past. The city's own scrawl doing the work a montage usually does.

• Seasons 1–2

Entourage

2004–2011·HBO·Comedy

Los Angeles from a moving car, and Jane's Addiction — an opening that is essentially an advertisement for the lifestyle the show is about.

• Season 1

Peep Show

2003–2015·Channel 4·Comedy

Nineteen seconds and a card, for a comedy shot almost entirely from inside its characters' heads.

• Season 4

Murdoch Mysteries

2008–·Citytv / CBC·Crime

A Toronto detective in the 1890s using methods the era has not invented yet, past twenty seasons.

• Season 1

The Closer

2005–2012·TNT·Crime

Kyra Sedgwick's LAPD deputy chief, and the most-watched drama basic cable had at the time.

• Season 1

Doc Martin

2004–2022·ITV·Comedy

A London surgeon with a blood phobia relocated to a Cornish village that will not leave him alone.

• Season 1

Project Runway

2004–·Bravo / Lifetime·Documentary

Designers given a day and a budget, and Heidi Klum telling one of them they are out.

• Seasons 1–4

MythBusters

2003–2018·Discovery Channel·Documentary

Two special-effects builders testing folklore with explosives, introduced by a montage of the explosives.

• Season 1

Bleach

2004–·TV Tokyo·Animation

Fifteen different openings across its original run, each one a complete restyling — a long-running series that treated its titles as a rotating commission rather than a fixed asset.

• Season 1

Everybody Hates Chris

2005–2009·UPN / The CW·Comedy

Chris Rock narrating his own Bed-Stuy adolescence, opened by the family on the stoop.

• Season 1

Heartland

2007–·CBC·Drama

A family ranch in Alberta, and the longest-running one-hour drama in Canadian television.

• Seasons 1–3

Archer

2009–2023·FX·Animation

Sixties spy-thriller title design executed straight — silhouettes, gun barrels and a brass sting, with the joke being that the show underneath refuses to match it.

• Season 1

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

2008–2020·Cartoon Network / Disney+·Animation

A newsreel rather than a title sequence — a narrator reporting the state of the war, rewritten every episode, preceded by a different aphorism each week.

• Season 1

White Collar

2009–2014·USA Network·Crime

Nine seconds. A fedora, a card, and straight into it.

• Season 1

The Biggest Loser

2004–2020·NBC·Documentary

A weight-loss competition whose titles were rebuilt around whichever pairing the season had chosen.

• Season 5

Teen Titans

2003–2006·Cartoon Network·Animation

A J-pop theme by Puffy AmiYumi, recorded in both Japanese and English and alternated between episodes.

• Season 1

Boston Legal

2004–2008·ABC·Comedy

Legal-drama iconography played as farce, from the same producer as Ally McBeal and with the same refusal to take the profession seriously.

• Season 1

Pawn Stars

2009–·History·Documentary

A Las Vegas pawn shop, three generations of one family, and a guy they call an expert once an episode.

• Season 1

Psych

2006–2014·USA Network·Crime

'I Know, You Know' — a theme re-recorded in a different genre for special episodes, which makes it a rare case of a comedy varying its own titles.

• Season 4

Big Love

2006–2011·HBO·Drama

A family skating on ice that ends, over 'God Only Knows' — a marriage held up by something visibly about to give way.

• Seasons 1–3

Jersey Shore

2009–2012·MTV·Documentary

Eight housemates in Seaside Heights, and the most watched series MTV has ever had.

• Season 1

Star Trek: Enterprise

2001–2005·UPN·Sci-Fi

The franchise's most argued-over opening: no orchestra, no starfield, but a montage of real human exploration — sailing ships, biplanes, spacesuits — under a soft-rock ballad. Half the audience never forgave it, which is its own kind of achievement.

• Seasons 1–2
• Seasons 3–4

Code Geass

2006–2008·MBS / TBS·Animation

Mecha and monarchy over a rock track, with the aristocratic cast posed like a fashion shoot.

• Season 1

The Fairly OddParents

2001–2017·Nickelodeon·Animation

A theme that runs through the entire premise as a checklist, revised several times across sixteen years.

• Season 1

The IT Crowd

2006–2013·Channel 4·Comedy

Eight-bit pixel art and a chiptune, for a basement full of people nobody upstairs wants to think about.

• Season 1

Monk

2002–2009·USA Network·Crime

Randy Newman singing about being obsessive over a detective straightening things — a theme that explains the character faster than the pilot does.

• Season 1

NCIS: Los Angeles

2009–2023·CBS·Crime

The first NCIS spin-off, fourteen seasons of undercover work.

• Season 5

Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide

2004–2007·Nickelodeon·Comedy

A middle-school survival manual delivered to camera, one tip per episode.

• Season 1

The Killing

2007–2012·DR1·Crime

Copenhagen in the dark and the rain, over twenty-nine seconds that established the visual language of an entire decade of Nordic crime drama.

• Season 1

Robot Chicken

2005–·Adult Swim·Animation

A chicken reanimated with machinery and forced to watch television, which is the show's premise and its title sequence at once.

• Season 1

Naruto

2002–2007·TV Tokyo·Animation

Nine openings across five years, each announcing a new arc — and the first is the one an entire generation can still hum.

• Season 1

The Apprentice

2004–·NBC·Documentary

Manhattan from a helicopter over the O'Jays' For the Love of Money, which is the whole thesis of the programme in one sample.

• Season 1

Gurren Lagann

2007·TV Tokyo·Animation

A mecha series whose opening escalates as fast as the show does, and which by the end is operating at a scale the first episode could not have suggested.

• Season 1

Weeds

2005–2012·Showtime·Comedy

'Little Boxes' over identical suburban houses — and from the third season the song is re-recorded by a different artist every episode, which makes this one of the most varied openings in television.

• Season 2

Degrassi: The Next Generation

2001–2015·CTV / MuchMusic·Drama

A cast montage rebuilt every season across fourteen years, tracking a school through several complete changes of pupil.

• Season 14

Deadliest Catch

2005–·Discovery Channel·Documentary

Bering Sea crab boats, opening on the sea doing the thing that makes the programme's title literal.

• Season 1

Ugly Betty

2006–2010·ABC·Comedy

Fashion-magazine collage and a poncho, in twelve seconds.

• Season 1

The Suite Life of Zack & Cody

2005–2008·Disney Channel·Comedy

Twins living in a Boston hotel their mother sings in.

• Season 1

Merlin

2008–2012·BBC One·Drama

Camelot rendered in gold and firelight, with a narration establishing a prophecy in about the time it takes to say one.

• Season 1

Top Chef

2006–·Bravo·Documentary

Knives on a board and a countdown, in the cooking competition that took itself seriously first.

• Season 1

Californication

2007–2014·Showtime·Comedy

Los Angeles from a convertible, with a writer who has not written anything in some years.

• Season 1

Keeping Up with the Kardashians

2007–2021·E!·Documentary

Fourteen years of a family photograph rebuilt every season, and ten seconds to do it in.

• Season 1

Aqua Teen Hunger Force

2000–2015·Adult Swim·Animation

A rap theme introducing three fast-food items who do not solve crimes, performed with the conviction of a show that does.

• Season 1

Samurai Jack

2001–2017·Cartoon Network / Adult Swim·Animation

A villain narrating his own defeat of the hero, over graphic-design animation that owes more to UPA than to Saturday morning.

• Season 1

Chuck

2007–2012·NBC·Comedy

Consumer electronics and spy hardware cut together at the same speed, for a show that could never decide which it was about — correctly.

• Season 1

Drake & Josh

2004–2007·Nickelodeon·Comedy

Two stepbrothers in San Diego, from the All That writers' room.

• Season 4

Alias

2001–2006·ABC·Drama

Rapid-cut disguises and wigs, rebuilt every season as the show's premise was torn up and restarted — which happened more often than most series manage in a decade.

• Seasons 1–5

The Hills

2006–2010·MTV·Documentary

The Laguna Beach spin-off that moved to Los Angeles, and the show that made the word scripted an argument.

• Season 1

Law & Order: Criminal Intent

2001–2011·NBC / USA Network·Crime

The franchise entry that follows the criminal rather than the case, and so has to break the format's own rule about not showing you the answer.

• Season 1

The X Factor

2004–2018·ITV·Documentary

Simon Cowell's format after Pop Idol, opening on a spotlight sweep and a fanfare rebuilt every few series.

• Season 1

Nip/Tuck

2003–2010·FX·Drama

A mannequin being marked up for surgery, over a pop song — cosmetic work presented as retail, which is the show's position on it.

• Season 1

Brothers & Sisters

2006–2011·ABC·Drama

The Walker family and the business they inherit, with Sally Field and Rachel Griffiths.

• Season 1

Stargate Atlantis

2004–2009·Sci-Fi Channel·Sci-Fi

The same franchise moved to another galaxy, and the titles say so — a city rather than a gate, rising out of water instead of standing in a mountain.

• Season 1
• Seasons 2–3
• Season 4
• and 1 more

Ghost Whisperer

2005–2010·CBS·Horror

Jennifer Love Hewitt talking to the dead in a small Maryland town.

• Season 1

iCarly

2007–2012·Nickelodeon·Comedy

A web show made in a Seattle flat, five years before that was an ordinary thing for a teenager to do.

• Season 1

Burn Notice

2007–2013·USA Network·Crime

A narrated premise about being blacklisted, delivered over Miami heat in thirty-one seconds.

• Season 1

CSI: Miami

2002–2012·CBS·Crime

The first CSI spin-off, opened by The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again".

• Season 1

Spooks

2002–2011·BBC One·Drama

Fast-cut surveillance imagery and a clock, from a series that made a habit of killing its leads without warning.

• Season 1

Cold Case

2003–2010·CBS·Crime

Evidence boxes and faded photographs, for a procedural whose whole method is that the past is filed somewhere.

• Season 1

Kim Possible

2002–2007·Disney Channel·Animation

'Call Me, Beep Me' over split-screen spy graphics — a theme so tied to the show that Disney rerecorded it for the live-action film and was widely told not to.

• Season 1

Fear Factor

2001–2012·NBC·Documentary

The Dutch format that asked contestants to eat things, opening on a montage of them regretting it.

• Season 1

Rescue Me

2004–2011·FX·Drama

New York firefighters after 2001, introduced without a single heroic frame in it.

• Season 1

The L Word

2004–2009·Showtime·Drama

A circle of women in West Hollywood, and a theme song that lists what the show is about out loud.

• Season 1

Balamory

2002–2005·CBeebies·Comedy

A Scottish island village painted in primary colours, with a theme that asks what the story is in it.

• Season 1

Pushing Daisies

2007–2009·ABC·Comedy

Storybook illustration and saturated colour, pitched exactly between a fairy tale and a mortuary — which is the show.

• Season 1

Zoey 101

2005–2008·Nickelodeon·Comedy

A Californian boarding school, with a theme sung by Jamie Lynn Spears.

• Season 2

John Adams

2008·HBO·Drama

The thirteen colonies' flags and founding documents animated into a single banner, over a fife-and-drum theme.

• Season 1

The Bachelor

2002–·ABC·Documentary

The format that turned courtship into an elimination bracket, and gave the rose its own verb.

• Season 1

The Venture Bros.

2003–2018·Adult Swim·Animation

Jonny Quest's adventure-cartoon grammar played straight and then left to rot for fifteen years.

• Season 1

Misfits

2009–2013·E4·Sci-Fi

Community-service orange and a storm, with superpowers treated as one more thing happening to people who already had enough going on.

• Season 1

Samurai Champloo

2004–2005·Fuji TV·Animation

Nujabes and Shing02 over Edo-period swordplay — hip-hop and historical drama treated as obviously compatible, which nobody had assumed before.

• Season 1

That's So Raven

2003–2007·Disney Channel·Comedy

A girl who sees the future and misreads it every week.

• Season 1

Codename: Kids Next Door

2002–2008·Cartoon Network·Animation

A spy-thriller opening for five children fighting adults, played with the seriousness of a much larger programme.

• Season 1

Paranoia Agent

2004·WOWOW·Horror

Satoshi Kon's only television series, opened by the entire cast laughing in front of disasters.

• Season 1

Life on Mars

2006–2007·BBC One·Sci-Fi

A Manchester detective wakes in 1973 and cannot establish whether he is mad, in a coma, or back in time — the show's own summary, delivered as narration.

• Season 1

The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy

2001–2007·Cartoon Network·Animation

Two children who win the Grim Reaper in a limbo contest and keep him as a friend.

• Season 1

Mock the Week

2005–2022·BBC Two·Comedy

A topical panel show whose titles cut the week's news into a strobing collage before anyone speaks.

• Season 1

New Tricks

2003–2015·BBC One·Crime

Retired detectives reopening cold cases, with a theme song sung by Dennis Waterman about the premise.

• Season 1

The Osbournes

2002–2005·MTV·Documentary

Ozzy Osbourne singing Crazy Train as a lounge number over a title card done in gold leaf, which is the joke the whole series runs on.

• Season 1

The Batman

2004–2008·Kids' WB·Animation

The series that had to follow Batman: The Animated Series and chose to look nothing like it.

• Season 1

Drop Dead Diva

2009–2014·Lifetime·Comedy

A model who dies and wakes up in the body of a lawyer, which is a body-swap comedy and a legal procedural at once.

• Season 1

Moral Orel

2005–2008·Adult Swim·Animation

Stop-motion in the Davey and Goliath idiom, which by its third season had stopped being a parody at all.

• Season 1

Big Brother (UK)

2000–·Channel 4 / ITV·Documentary

The eye, and a theme built out of the sound of the house — the format that made surveillance into a light entertainment brand.

• Season 1
• Season 8

Justice League

2001–2006·Cartoon Network·Animation

An orchestral fanfare and seven heroes introduced in sequence, from the same production team as Batman: The Animated Series and with the same refusal to condescend.

• Season 1

The League

2009–2015·FX / FXX·Comedy

A fantasy football league and the friendships it slowly destroys.

• Season 1

The Cleveland Show

2009–2013·Fox·Animation

The Family Guy spin-off, moving Cleveland Brown to Virginia and giving him a theme song about it.

• Season 1

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends

2004–2009·Cartoon Network·Animation

A boarding house for imaginary friends whose children have outgrown them.

• Season 1

Dead Like Me

2003–2004·Showtime·Comedy

Reapers, toast and small municipal death — an opening that treats the afterlife as clerical work, which is the joke the series runs on.

• Season 1

Damages

2007–2012·FX / DirecTV·Crime

Legal documents, blood and Manhattan glass, cut in the same non-linear fashion the series tells its story.

• Season 1

Ouran High School Host Club

2006·Nippon TV·Animation

A scholarship student mistaken for a boy and conscripted into the school's host club.

• Season 1

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

2002–2005·Animax·Animation

Yoko Kanno again, this time with Origa singing in Russian over cybernetic bodies being assembled — a sequence that treats the human form as hardware.

• Season 2

Clone High

2002–2023·MTV / Max·Animation

A theme that introduces the entire premise as a shouted list of historical figures, which remains the fastest exposition in animation.

• Season 1

Invader Zim

2001–2006·Nickelodeon·Animation

Gothic-industrial design on a children's network, with a theme that sounds like it was made under duress.

• Season 1

Still Game

2002–2019·BBC Scotland / BBC One·Comedy

Two Glasgow pensioners and the Craiglang high-rises, with titles built entirely from the scheme itself.

• Season 1

Torchwood

2006–2011·BBC Three / BBC One·Sci-Fi

The Doctor Who spinoff that wanted to be taken seriously, opening with Cardiff, a rift and a great deal of blue light.

• Season 1

Warehouse 13

2009–2014·Syfy·Sci-Fi

Artefacts on shelves, filmed like a museum inventory that has started moving on its own.

• Season 1

Stargate Universe

2009–2011·Syfy·Sci-Fi

The franchise's darkest entry, and its plainest opening — no fanfare, no gate, just a ship going somewhere nobody chose.

• Season 1

Leverage

2008–2012·TNT·Crime

Twenty seconds of heist iconography, in a show that opens each episode with a job already half underway.

• Season 1

Total Drama Island

2007–2008·Teletoon·Animation

Survivor animated for children, with confessional booths and eliminations played entirely straight.

• Season 1

Danny Phantom

2004–2007·Nickelodeon·Animation

A narrated origin sung over the transformation, in the tradition the network had been running since Doug.

• Season 1

Laguna Beach

2004–2006·MTV·Documentary

Real teenagers filmed like a drama, and the format most of MTV's next decade was built on.

• Season 1

Ben 10

2005–2008·Cartoon Network·Animation

A theme that lists the premise as a countdown, over a boy who becomes ten different aliens.

• Seasons 1–2

Even Stevens

2000–2003·Disney Channel·Comedy

Shia LaBeouf as the youngest of three in a Sacramento family.

• Season 1

Cyberchase

2002–·PBS·Animation

Three children pulled into a network to stop a villain with mathematics, which is the plot and the curriculum at once.

• Season 1

CSI: NY

2004–2013·CBS·Crime

The third CSI, opened by "Baba O'Riley".

• Season 1

Batman: The Brave and the Bold

2008–2011·Cartoon Network·Animation

Batman team-ups in the Silver Age idiom, opened with a straight-faced superhero fanfare.

• Season 1

Jackie Chan Adventures

2000–2005·Kids' WB·Animation

Jackie Chan as an archaeologist hunting talismans, with the real Chan answering fan questions at the end of each episode.

• Season 1

Dora the Explorer

2000–2019·Nickelodeon·Animation

A bilingual preschool series built on asking the audience questions and leaving room for the answer.

• Season 1

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters

2000–2004·TV Tokyo·Animation

A card game staged as a series of duels to the death, with an opening rebuilt several times inside its first season.

• Season 1

Drawn Together

2004–2007·Comedy Central·Animation

A reality-house parody whose cast are each drawn in a different studio's style.

• Seasons 1–2

Dark Angel

2000–2002·Fox·Sci-Fi

Post-collapse Seattle in thirty-five seconds, from James Cameron's only substantial television project.

• Season 1

Angels in America

2003·HBO·Drama

Kushner's play filmed by Mike Nichols, opened by a flight across America into a Manhattan fountain.

• Season 1

Without a Trace

2002–2009·CBS·Crime

Missing-person photographs and a clock, in thirty-two seconds that state the format precisely.

• Season 1

Numb3rs

2005–2010·CBS·Crime

An FBI agent and his mathematician brother, with the equations drawn over the city in the titles.

• Season 1

Carnivàle

2003–2005·HBO·Horror

Tarot cards dissolving into Depression-era photographs and newsreel, so the reading and the history become the same footage. Another Emmy winner, and still one of the strangest things a network put in front of a drama.

• Seasons 1–2

The Proud Family

2001–2005·Disney Channel·Animation

Penny Proud and her family, opened by a theme Solange recorded with Destiny's Child.

• Season 1

Being Human

2008–2013·BBC Three·Horror

A vampire, a werewolf and a ghost sharing a Bristol rental, introduced with the flatness of a house-share advert.

• Season 1

Big Time Rush

2009–2013·Nickelodeon·Comedy

A manufactured boy band playing a manufactured boy band, which then toured as one.

• Season 1

Andromeda

2000–2005·Syndication·Sci-Fi

Another posthumous Roddenberry premise, opened with a ship, a collapsed republic and a great deal of lens flare.

• Season 1
• Season 3

Metalocalypse

2006–2013·Adult Swim·Animation

A death-metal theme written and performed by the show's creator, for a cartoon about a band whose concerts have a body count.

• Season 1

In the Night Garden...

2007–2009·CBeebies·Comedy

Two minutes of a boat, a sleeping child and a narrator naming everything in the garden, before a programme designed to send that child to sleep.

• Season 1

Masters of Horror

2005–2007·Showtime·Horror

An anthology giving a different established horror director an hour each week.

• Season 1

The Spectacular Spider-Man

2008–2009·The CW / Disney XD·Animation

Web-line geometry and a surf-rock horn chart, widely held to be the best Spider-Man adaptation in any medium.

• Season 1

My Life as a Teenage Robot

2003–2009·Nickelodeon·Animation

A teenage combat robot who would rather be at school, drawn in hard mid-century angles.

• Season 1

The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius

2002–2006·Nickelodeon·Animation

One of the first fully CG series made for American television week to week.

• Season 1

Static Shock

2000–2004·The WB·Animation

A hip-hop theme over a Black teenage superhero in Dakota — from the same DC animation house as Batman and Superman, and tonally nothing like either.

• Season 1

Primeval

2007–2011·ITV·Sci-Fi

Anomalies in time opening across England and letting prehistory through, in ITV's answer to the revived Doctor Who.

• Season 3

Dollhouse

2009–2010·Fox·Sci-Fi

Bodies wiped and rewritten, shown as blank figures being dressed — a premise stated without a word.

• Season 1

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace

2004·Channel 4·Comedy

A title sequence pretending to be a lost 1980s horror series, complete with the production faults the conceit requires.

• Season 1

The 4400

2004–2007·USA Network·Sci-Fi

Four thousand four hundred missing people returned at once, introduced through the photographs of who they were.

• Season 1

The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack

2008–2012·Cartoon Network·Animation

A boy raised by a whale, in a sea-shanty register that got steadily more unsettling.

• Season 1

Miranda

2009–2015·BBC Two / BBC One·Comedy

Miranda Hart addressing the camera in a joke shop, in eleven seconds of open.

• Season 1

Eureka

2006–2012·Sci-Fi Channel·Sci-Fi

Twelve seconds of small-town Americana with the physics quietly wrong in the background.

• Season 1

Chappelle's Show

2003–2006·Comedy Central·Comedy

Twenty-two seconds of animation and a beat, for the sketch show that defined a decade of American comedy in two and a half seasons.

• Season 1

Crossing Jordan

2001–2007·NBC·Crime

A Boston medical examiner who investigates her own cases against instruction.

• Season 1

Jericho

2006–2008·CBS·Drama

Thirteen seconds and a mushroom cloud on the horizon, seen from a Kansas town that has no idea what happened.

• Season 1

Flashpoint

2008–2012·CTV / CBS·Crime

A Toronto tactical unit, and the first Canadian drama to air simultaneously on an American network.

• Season 1

Little Britain

2003–2006·BBC Three / BBC One·Comedy

A radio series moved to television, narrated as though it were a documentary about a country nobody has heard of.

• Season 1

Chowder

2007–2010·Cartoon Network·Animation

An apprentice cook in Marzipan City, animated over patterned backgrounds that never stop moving.

• Season 1

Cranford

2007–2009·BBC One·Drama

Elizabeth Gaskell's Cheshire town, with Judi Dench and most of the British stage.

• Season 1

Hung

2009–2011·HBO·Comedy

Detroit in decline, filmed with more sympathy than the premise would lead you to expect.

• Season 1

Black Books

2000–2004·Channel 4·Comedy

A bookshop run by a man who does not want customers, from Dylan Moran and Graham Linehan.

• Season 1

Horrible Histories

2009–·CBBC·Comedy

Sketch comedy about history for children that adults watched anyway, with the titles redrawn between series.

• Season 5

Medium

2005–2011·NBC / CBS·Crime

Patricia Arquette as a consultant to the district attorney who dreams the cases.

• Season 1

Who Do You Think You Are?

2004–·BBC One·Documentary

One celebrity's ancestry per episode, opening on photographs that dissolve into each other backwards.

• Season 1

United States of Tara

2009–2011·Showtime·Comedy

Diablo Cody's series about a woman with dissociative identity disorder, whose titles introduce every alter.

• Season 1

Toradora!

2008–2009·TV Tokyo·Animation

Two students agreeing to help each other with the wrong crushes, which goes exactly as expected.

• Season 1

Flight of the Conchords

2007–2009·HBO·Comedy

Cut-paper animation of two New Zealanders failing to make it in New York, assembled with the same handmade cheapness as the band it is about.

• Seasons 1–2

Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations

2005–2012·Travel Channel·Documentary

The travel programme that treated a meal as reporting, opening on a passport stamp and a guitar line.

• Season 1

Legend of the Seeker

2008–2010·Syndication·Drama

Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth novels, from the Hercules and Xena producers.

• Season 1

Kyle XY

2006–2009·ABC Family·Sci-Fi

A teenager found in the woods with no memory and no navel, which is the whole first episode's mystery in one detail.

• Season 1

Whitechapel

2009–2013·ITV·Crime

Modern police work in the streets the Ripper murders happened in, with each series restaging an old case.

• Season 1

Royal Pains

2009–2016·USA Network·Comedy

A concierge doctor in the Hamptons, in the middle of USA's blue-sky decade.

• Season 1

Long Way Round

2004·Sky One·Documentary

Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman riding from London to New York the long way, and the map that opens each leg.

• Season 1

Ice Road Truckers

2007–2017·History·Documentary

Haulage across frozen lakes in the Northwest Territories, opening on the ice doing what the ice does.

• Season 1

Da Ali G Show

2000–2004·Channel 4 / HBO·Comedy

Sacha Baron Cohen's three characters interviewing people who did not know.

• Season 1

American Dragon: Jake Long

2005–2007·Disney Channel·Animation

A New York teenager who is also the American Dragon, and the only one.

• Season 1

Xiaolin Showdown

2003–2006·Kids' WB·Animation

Four apprentice monks collecting artefacts, in a series that borrows its fight grammar from wuxia rather than from superheroes.

• Season 1

Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi

2004–2006·Cartoon Network·Animation

The Japanese pop duo animated as cartoon versions of themselves, with a theme they recorded.

• Season 1

Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps

2001–2011·BBC Three·Comedy

Six friends in a Runcorn pub, and the sitcom BBC Three ran for nine series while the critics ignored it.

• Season 9

As Told by Ginger

2000–2006·Nickelodeon·Animation

Middle school treated as continuing drama rather than a gag engine, which was unusual for the slot.

• Season 1

Doctors

2000–2024·BBC One·Drama

A Midlands surgery, twenty-four years of daytime, and one self-contained story an episode.

• Season 7

Outnumbered

2007–2016·BBC One·Comedy

Two parents and three children, with the children's dialogue largely improvised.

• Season 1

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

2003–2020·ABC·Documentary

A family's house rebuilt in a week, opening on the bus that is about to move.

• Season 3

Camp Lazlo

2005–2008·Cartoon Network·Animation

A Brazilian spider monkey at a scout camp run by a humourless beetle.

• Season 1

The Colbert Report

2005–2014·Comedy Central·Comedy

An eagle, a flag and a barrage of adjectives flying at the camera — a parody of cable-news branding so precise that cable news started copying it back.

• Season 1

6teen

2004–2010·Teletoon·Animation

Six sixteen-year-olds working in the same shopping centre, from the Total Drama creators.

• Season 1

Hustle

2004–2012·BBC One·Crime

Playing cards, sleight of hand and London — a con-artist series whose titles are themselves a piece of misdirection.

• Season 1

Sanctuary

2008–2011·Syfy·Sci-Fi

A refuge for cryptids run by a 150-year-old doctor, shot almost entirely on green screen.

• Season 1

Law & Order: UK

2009–2014·ITV·Crime

American scripts reshot in London with the two-part structure intact, and the chung-chung kept.

• Season 6

American Dreams

2002–2005·NBC·Drama

A Philadelphia family in the mid-1960s, built around American Bandstand.

• Season 1

Phil of the Future

2004–2006·Disney Channel·Sci-Fi

A family from 2121 stranded in the present when their time machine breaks.

• Season 1

Grounded for Life

2001–2005·Fox / The WB·Comedy

A young Staten Island family, told out of order within each episode.

• Season 1

The Corner

2000·HBO·Drama

David Simon and David Mills's West Baltimore miniseries, made three years before The Wire took the same corner.

• Season 1

Boston Public

2000–2004·Fox·Drama

David E. Kelley's high school, running alongside his legal series on the same network.

• Season 1

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law

2000–2007·Adult Swim·Animation

Birdman as a lawyer representing Hanna-Barbera characters, opened in the register of a network legal drama.

• Season 1

Coupling

2000–2004·BBC Two·Comedy

Six friends in a bar, structured as farce rather than warmth — the British sitcom most often, and most unfairly, compared to Friends.

• Season 1

The Sarah Jane Adventures

2007–2011·CBBC·Sci-Fi

The Doctor Who spin-off built for children, giving a companion from 1973 her own series thirty-four years later.

• Season 1

Undeclared

2001–2002·Fox·Comedy

Judd Apatow's college follow-up to Freaks and Geeks, cancelled after one season.

• Season 1

Back at the Barnyard

2007–2011·Nickelodeon·Animation

Farm animals who behave like people the moment the farmer leaves.

• Season 1

Planet Earth

2006·BBC One·Documentary

George Fenton's orchestral swell over the planet from orbit — twenty-nine seconds that set the house style for every natural history series since.

• Season 1

Green Wing

2004–2007·Channel 4·Comedy

A hospital comedy shot with speed-ramped transitions between every scene, which the titles establish first.

• Season 1

Gokusen

2002–2008·NTV·Comedy

A yakuza heir teaching maths at a school for delinquents.

• Season 1

Underbelly

2008–2013·Nine Network·Crime

Australian organised crime, a different true story each season.

• Season 1

Doctor Who (2005)

2005–·BBC One·Sci-Fi

The revival kept the tunnel and the logo and threw out everything else, then carried on rebuilding — clouds, fire, clockwork — with a new arrangement of the same 1963 melody every few years.

• Season 1
• Seasons 2–4
• Seasons 5–6
• and 5 more

Secret Diary of a Call Girl

2007–2011·ITV2 / Showtime·Drama

Billie Piper addressing the camera between clients, adapted from the Belle de Jour blog.

• Season 1

The Dead Zone

2002–2007·USA Network·Sci-Fi

The Stephen King adaptation as a weekly series, with a man who reads futures by touch.

• Season 1

Joan of Arcadia

2003–2005·CBS·Drama

A teenager who talks to God, introduced by a Joan Osborne song that asks what if God were one of us — the rare case of a theme predating and defining the premise.

• Season 1

El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera

2007–2008·Nickelodeon·Animation

A boy from a family of both superheroes and supervillains, who has not chosen yet.

• Season 1

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX

2004–2008·TV Tokyo·Animation

The Duel Monsters sequel, moved to a boarding school for duellists.

• Season 1

Punk'd

2003–2015·MTV·Comedy

Ashton Kutcher's hidden-camera show, and Candid Camera restaged for people with publicists.

• Season 4

The Emperor's New School

2006–2008·Disney Channel·Animation

The Emperor's New Groove continued as a school comedy, with the film's narrator still interrupting.

• Season 1

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

2007–2010·Adult Swim·Comedy

Public-access video aesthetics reproduced exactly and then broken — twenty-two seconds that set the terms for a decade of internet comedy.

• Season 1

Army Wives

2007–2013·Lifetime·Drama

Four wives and one husband on a South Carolina army post, and the series that made Lifetime a scripted network.

• Season 1

Sealab 2021

2000–2005·Adult Swim·Animation

A 1972 Hanna-Barbera series redubbed into something else entirely, keeping the original's animation and none of its intentions.

• Season 1

Squidbillies

2005–2021·Adult Swim·Animation

Appalachian squids, with a theme song rerecorded by a different artist almost every season — one of the longest-running rotating title sequences on American television.

• Season 1

Childrens Hospital

2008–2016·Adult Swim·Comedy

A hospital soap parody that changed its own premise whenever it got bored, Rob Corddry's first series.

• Season 3

Between the Lions

2000–2010·PBS·Animation

A family of lions running a library, in a reading programme built by the people who made Sesame Street.

• Season 1

Fanboy & Chum Chum

2009–2014·Nickelodeon·Animation

Two boys in superhero costumes they never take off, in one of Nickelodeon's first CG series.

• Season 1

Ozzy & Drix

2002–2004·Kids' WB·Animation

The film Osmosis Jones continued as a series, with a white blood cell and a cold pill policing a teenager's body.

• Season 1

Dragons' Den

2005–·BBC Two·Documentary

The Japanese format Britain took and exported again, opening on money stacked in front of five people who are not going to give you any.

• Season 1

FlashForward

2009–2010·ABC·Sci-Fi

Everyone on Earth blacks out for two minutes and seventeen seconds and sees the same day six months ahead.

• Season 1

Bored to Death

2009–2011·HBO·Comedy

A pulp-paperback cover come to life — Brooklyn drawn as a detective magazine by Dean Haspiel, panel by panel.

• Season 1

The Dresden Files

2007·Syfy·Sci-Fi

Jim Butcher's wizard private investigator in Chicago, cancelled after one season.

• Season 1

One on One

2001–2006·UPN·Comedy

A Baltimore sports broadcaster whose teenage daughter moves in with him, and the spine of UPN's comedy block for five years.

• Season 1

Mutant X

2001–2004·Syndication·Sci-Fi

A Marvel-adjacent series made in Canada that Fox sued over for resembling the X-Men.

• Season 1

Megas XLR

2004–2005·Cartoon Network·Animation

A New Jersey mechanic who finds a giant robot in a scrapyard and bolts a car to its head.

• Season 1

Little Dorrit

2008·BBC One·Drama

Dickens serialised across fourteen parts, opened by ink and engraving that assemble the Marshalsea.

• Season 1

Superjail!

2007–2014·Adult Swim·Animation

A prison inside a volcano inside another volcano, animated with more detail per frame than the slot required.

• Season 1

Law & Order: Trial by Jury

2005–2006·NBC·Crime

The shortest-lived Law & Order, cancelled after thirteen episodes, covering the half of the format the parent series skipped.

• Season 1

ChalkZone

2002–2008·Nickelodeon·Animation

A world made of everything ever erased from a blackboard.

• Season 1

The Zeta Project

2001–2002·Kids' WB·Animation

A Batman Beyond spin-off about an assassin robot that refuses to kill and runs from the agency that built it.

• Season 1

The Mighty Boosh

2004–2007·BBC Three·Comedy

A stage show that became a radio series that became a television series, and kept the crimping in all three.

• Season 1

Yin Yang Yo!

2006–2009·Disney XD / Toon Disney·Animation

Twin rabbits studying woo-foo under a panda, in a series that never once slowed down.

• Season 1

Outrageous Fortune

2005–2010·TV3·Comedy

A West Auckland crime family whose matriarch decides, when her husband goes to prison, that the rest of them will go straight.

• Season 1

Half & Half

2002–2006·UPN·Comedy

Two half-sisters who grew up apart, living in the same San Francisco building as adults.

• Season 1

The Blue Planet

2001·BBC One·Documentary

The first of the BBC's ocean series, and the template its sequel and the Planet Earth films all inherited.

• Season 1

Life on Mars (US)

2008–2009·ABC·Sci-Fi

The American remake of the BBC series, opening on 1973 New York and the Bowie song both versions are named for.

• Season 1

Summer Heights High

2007·ABC (Australia)·Comedy

Chris Lilley playing three pupils and staff at the same school, shot as a documentary.

• Season 1

The Mighty B!

2008–2011·Nickelodeon·Animation

Amy Poehler's Honeybee scout collecting every badge in existence.

• Season 1

That Mitchell and Webb Look

2006–2010·BBC Two·Comedy

The sketch show out of the radio series That Mitchell and Webb Sound, and the home of Numberwang.

• Season 1

Charlie and Lola

2005–2008·CBeebies·Animation

Lauren Child's collage illustration animated as collage, with children rather than actors doing the voices.

• Season 1

The Lost Room

2006·Sci-Fi Channel·Sci-Fi

A motel room that stopped existing in 1961 and left its contents behind as objects with impossible properties.

• Season 1

Fear Itself

2008·NBC·Horror

Masters of Horror moved to a broadcast network and cut to fit it, which is most of what went wrong.

• Season 1

Class of 3000

2006–2008·Cartoon Network·Animation

André 3000's series about an Atlanta music class, with a theme he wrote and performed himself.

• Season 1

Queer as Folk (US)

2000–2005·Showtime·Drama

The Russell T Davies series remade in Pittsburgh and run for five seasons — four more than the original managed.

• Season 1

Being Erica

2009–2011·CBC·Drama

A therapist sending his patient back to her own regrets, one per session.

• Season 1

Time Squad

2001–2003·Cartoon Network·Animation

Time police correcting history, which keeps going wrong in ways they caused.

• Season 1

Brandy & Mr. Whiskers

2004–2006·Disney Channel·Animation

A pampered dog and a manic rabbit stranded together in the Amazon.

• Season 1

All of Us

2003–2007·UPN / The CW·Comedy

A blended family sitcom produced by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, out of their own circumstances.

• Season 1

Titus

2000–2002·Fox·Comedy

Christopher Titus narrating his own childhood from a white void between scenes.

• Season 1

Tru Calling

2003–2005·Fox·Sci-Fi

A morgue attendant who relives days, opened with the clock imagery the premise requires.

• Season 1

The Replacements

2006–2009·Disney Channel·Animation

Two orphans with a phone number that replaces any adult in their lives.

• Season 1

Dead Set

2008·E4·Horror

A zombie outbreak that the Big Brother house does not notice, written by Charlie Brooker before Black Mirror.

• Season 1

The Buzz on Maggie

2005–2006·Disney Channel·Animation

A teenage fly in a rubbish dump, which the series treats as an ordinary suburb.

• Season 1

Tom Goes to the Mayor

2004–2006·Adult Swim·Animation

Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim's first series, animated from photographs of the cast with almost no motion.

• Season 1

The Inbetweeners

2008–2010·E4·Comedy

Twenty-one seconds of school corridor, with no attempt to make any of the four look like someone you would want to be.

• Season 1

Pasión de Gavilanes

2003–2022·Telemundo / Caracol·Drama

Three brothers avenging their sister, and one of the most exported Colombian telenovelas.

• Season 1

The Brak Show

2000–2003·Adult Swim·Animation

The Space Ghost villain relocated to a 1950s sitcom family, with the sitcom open played completely straight.

• Season 1

Jeremiah

2002–2004·Showtime·Sci-Fi

J. Michael Straczynski's series about a world where everyone over puberty died fifteen years ago.

• Season 1

Supernanny

2004–·Channel 4·Documentary

Jo Frost arriving by taxi to reorganise a household, every week, for twenty years.

• Season 4

Cleopatra 2525

2000–2001·Syndication·Sci-Fi

Half-hour science fiction from the Hercules and Xena producers, paired with Jack of All Trades in one hour.

• Season 1

Wonderfalls

2004·Fox·Comedy

Souvenir figurines that talk, in a Niagara Falls gift shop — Bryan Fuller's first series and a direct ancestor of Pushing Daisies.

• Season 1

Spiral

2005–2020·Canal+·Crime

Paris police, courts and lawyers in thirty-one seconds, with none of the city that appears on postcards.

• Season 1

Teachers

2001–2004·Channel 4·Comedy

A Bristol comprehensive from the staff room's side, with Andrew Lincoln before The Walking Dead.

• Season 1

Men of a Certain Age

2009–2011·TNT·Drama

Three friends at the wrong end of their forties, written by Ray Romano and Mike Royce.

• Season 1

Threshold

2005–2006·CBS·Sci-Fi

Geometric contact imagery and a rising tone, from one of three first-contact series the American networks launched in the same season.

• Season 1

Gintama

2006–2021·TV Tokyo·Animation

Samurai comedy in an alien-occupied Edo, and one of the longest lists of distinct opening sequences in television.

• Season 1

Spicks and Specks

2005–·ABC (Australia)·Comedy

A music quiz named after a Bee Gees single, and one of the ABC's most watched programmes for a decade.

• Season 1

Krypto the Superdog

2005–2006·Cartoon Network·Animation

Superman's dog on Earth without him, living with a boy in suburban Metropolis.

• Season 1

12 oz. Mouse

2005–2020·Adult Swim·Animation

Drawn deliberately badly in flat colour, and the show that pushed hardest at what the block would broadcast.

• Season 1

Empire Falls

2005·HBO·Drama

Richard Russo adapting his own novel about a Maine mill town that has already lost.

• Season 1

Eve

2003–2006·UPN·Comedy

The rapper Eve as a Miami fashion designer, in one of the run of sitcoms UPN built its Monday nights on.

• Season 1

Little Mosque on the Prairie

2007–2012·CBC·Comedy

A Muslim congregation renting a prairie church hall, in a sitcom that became Canada's most exported comedy.

• Season 4

Odyssey 5

2002·Showtime·Sci-Fi

Five astronauts sent back five years to prevent the destruction of Earth, cancelled after one season.

• Season 1

Dirt

2007–2008·FX·Drama

Courteney Cox as the editor of a celebrity tabloid, cancelled during the writers' strike.

• Season 2

John from Cincinnati

2007·HBO·Drama

David Milch's surfing series, cancelled after one season and still argued about.

• Season 1

Son of the Beach

2000–2002·FX·Comedy

A Baywatch parody produced by Howard Stern, and one of FX's first originals.

• Season 1

Blue Water High

2005–2008·ABC (Australia)·Drama

A surf academy on the northern beaches, with the cast chosen partly for whether they could actually surf.

• Season 1

Witchblade

2001–2002·TNT·Sci-Fi

A New York detective bonded to a sentient gauntlet, from the Top Cow comic.

• Season 1

Huff

2004–2006·Showtime·Drama

A psychiatrist whose own life comes apart after a patient's suicide.

• Season 1

Sleeper Cell

2005–2006·Showtime·Drama

An FBI agent undercover in a Los Angeles terrorist cell, two seasons long.

• Season 1

Slings and Arrows

2003–2006·The Movie Network·Comedy

A Canadian series about a Shakespearean festival, with a different theatrical opening for each of its three seasons.

• Season 2

Boomtown

2002–2003·NBC·Crime

A Los Angeles crime series that told each case from five points of view, and opened with the device stated up front.

• Season 1

Wife Swap

2003–2009·Channel 4·Documentary

Two households exchanged for a fortnight, in ten seconds of titles that give away the whole premise.

• Season 1

The Life & Times of Tim

2008–2012·HBO·Animation

A man in New York whose every conversation makes his situation worse, drawn as simply as possible.

• Season 1

The Chris Isaak Show

2001–2004·Showtime·Comedy

The musician playing himself and his band playing themselves, in a series about their own touring.

• Season 1

The Basil Brush Show

2002–2007·CBBC·Comedy

The fox puppet given a sitcom of his own, forty years after he first turned up on somebody else's.

• Seasons 1–4

The Mitchell and Webb Situation

2001·Play UK·Comedy

David Mitchell and Robert Webb's first sketch series, five years before the one everyone remembers.

• Season 1

Departures

2008–2012·OLN (Canada)·Documentary

Two friends travelling for a year with a cameraman, shot with more care than the format usually gets.

• Season 1

Jake 2.0

2003–2004·UPN·Sci-Fi

An NSA computer technician infused with nanites in an accident, and made a field agent because of it.

• Season 1

Point Pleasant

2005·Fox·Horror

The devil's daughter washed up in a New Jersey beach town, from the Buffy writers' room.

• Season 1

Special Unit 2

2001–2002·UPN·Sci-Fi

A Chicago police unit whose caseload is entirely mythological, and which nobody else in the department believes exists.

• Season 1

We Can Be Heroes

2005·ABC (Australia)·Comedy

Chris Lilley playing all six finalists for Australian of the Year, in his first series.

• Season 1

Apparitions

2008·BBC One·Horror

A Catholic priest working as an exorcist in modern London, and one of the most complained-about dramas the BBC has run.

• Season 1

Dennis the Menace and Gnasher

2009–2013·CBBC·Animation

The Beano strip animated for CBBC, with the comic's line kept largely intact.

• Season 1

Casi Ángeles

2007–2010·Telefe (Argentina)·Drama

Cris Morena's Buenos Aires teen musical, which exported across Latin America and Israel.

• Season 1

Miracles

2003·ABC·Horror

A church investigator of the unexplained, cancelled after six of its thirteen episodes aired.

• Season 1

Cidade dos Homens

2002–2005·TV Globo·Drama

Two boys growing up in a Rio favela, made by the City of God team either side of the film.

• Season 1

Braquo

2009–2016·Canal+·Crime

Olivier Marchal's Paris police series, about four officers who stop pretending to follow the law.

• Season 1

Occupation

2009·BBC One·Drama

Three soldiers from one Manchester regiment and the years after Basra.

• Season 1

Urban Gothic

2000–2001·Channel 5·Horror

A British horror anthology made for late night on a channel three years old, and nastier than anything the BBC would have run.

• Season 1

The Good Wife

2009–2016·CBS·Drama

Chicago legal iconography in thirty-nine seconds, from the network drama most often argued to be the best of its era.

• Seasons 1–2

Wallander

2005–2016·SVT / BBC One·Crime

Henning Mankell's Ystad detective, filmed twice — in Swedish with Krister Henriksson, and in English with Kenneth Branagh.

• Season 1

Os Normais

2001–2003·TV Globo·Comedy

A Rio couple narrating their own relationship to camera, in the sitcom that reset Brazilian television comedy.

• Season 1

In Treatment

2008–2021·HBO·Drama

Nineteen seconds and a chair. For a show that is entirely two people talking in one room, the titles decline to leave it.

• Season 1

The 10th Kingdom

2000·NBC·Sci-Fi

Ten hours of fairy tale in which Manhattan and the Nine Kingdoms turn out to share a mirror.

• Season 1

19 Kids and Counting

2008–2015·TLC·Documentary

An Arkansas family of twenty-one, and the programme TLC built a decade of its schedule around.

• Season 1

8 Out of 10 Cats

2005–·Channel 4·Comedy

A panel show about opinion polls, which spawned a Countdown crossover more popular than either parent.

• Season 1

8 Simple Rules

2002–2005·ABC·Comedy

A father guarding his daughters, and the sitcom that had to keep going after John Ritter died during its second season.

• Season 1

90210

2008–2013·The CW·Drama

Beverly Hills, 90210 restarted for a new decade, keeping the postcode and the zip-code typography.

• Season 1

According to Jim

2001–2009·ABC·Comedy

Eight seasons of a Chicago family sitcom that critics ignored and audiences kept renewing.

• Season 1

Agatha Christie's Marple

2004–2013·ITV·Crime

The ITV Marple, which adapted novels Miss Marple was never in by writing her into them.

• Season 1

The Amazing Race

2001–·CBS·Documentary

A race around the world, opening on a map and a countdown that has won ten Emmys for its programme.

• Season 10

America's Next Top Model

2003–2018·UPN / The CW·Documentary

The format that ran for twenty-four cycles and rebuilt its titles for most of them.

• Season 1

Ancient Aliens

2009–·History·Documentary

A documentary series whose answer to every question it raises is the same one.

• Season 1

Australian Survivor

2002–·Network Ten·Documentary

The format remade locally three separate times before it finally stuck.

• Season 2

Autumn in My Heart

2000·KBS2·Drama

The melodrama credited with starting the Korean wave, about two children swapped at the hospital.

• Season 1

The Backyardigans

2004–2013·Nick Jr.·Animation

Five animals whose garden becomes a different world every episode, with a full musical score in a different genre each time.

• Season 1

Bad Girls Club

2006–2017·Oxygen·Documentary

Seven women in a house chosen for how badly they were expected to get on.

• Season 2

Band of Brothers

2001·HBO·Drama

Michael Kamen's theme over pencil sketches of soldiers dissolving into photographs — two and a half minutes, and among the most imitated title sequences ever made for television.

• Season 1

BattleBots

2000–2002·Comedy Central·Documentary

Home-built robots destroying each other inside a perspex box, and the reason a good many engineers exist.

• Season 1

Battlestar Galactica

2004–2009·Sci-Fi Channel·Sci-Fi

The only title sequence on this site that reports the plot. Under the Gayatri Mantra and the Cylon text, the American version ends on a count of the surviving human population — a figure recalculated for each episode, so the titles get worse as the show goes on.

• Seasons 1–2
• Season 3
• Season 4

Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom

2009–2013·Channel 5 / Nick Jr.·Animation

Elves and fairies from the people who made Peppa Pig, drawn in the same flat two dimensions.

• Season 1

Benidorm

2007–2018·ITV·Comedy

An all-inclusive Spanish resort and the same British families returning to it for ten series.

• Season 1

The Bernie Mac Show

2001–2006·Fox·Comedy

A comedian raising his sister's three children and turning to camera to explain himself about it.

• Seasons 3–5

The Big Fat Quiz of the Year

2004–·Channel 4·Comedy

An annual quiz about the year just gone, running long past midnight and rebuilt from scratch each December.

• Season 10

Bleak House

2005·BBC One·Drama

Dickens serialised the way he was published — half-hour instalments, twice a week — with a title sequence cut to match.

• Season 1

Bondi Rescue

2006–·Network Ten·Documentary

The lifeguards at Bondi Beach, filmed across a summer at a time.

• Season 8

Britain's Got Talent

2007–·ITV·Documentary

The variety format that exported itself to seventy countries, and the theme it kept for its first four series.

• Seasons 1–4

Clannad

2007–2009·TBS·Animation

A Kyoto Animation adaptation that spends a full season setting up what the second season does to you.

• Season 1

Cory in the House

2007–2008·Disney Channel·Comedy

That's So Raven's brother moved into the White House as the chef's son.

• Season 1

Criminal Minds

2005–·CBS / Paramount+·Crime

Case files and profiler jargon in thirty-one seconds, from a procedural that has now run for two decades.

• Season 1

The Crocodile Hunter Diaries

2002–2006·Animal Planet·Documentary

The spin-off following the zoo's staff between expeditions, rather than Irwin in the field.

• Season 1

Dancing on Ice

2006–·ITV·Documentary

Celebrities skating in pairs, judged by Torvill and Dean, who had won the thing for real.

• Season 7

Deadly Women

2005–2021·Discovery Channel / Investigation Discovery·Documentary

Murders committed by women, reconstructed by actors and narrated flat, across fourteen seasons of the Investigation Discovery house style.

• Season 1

Dinosaur Train

2009–·PBS Kids·Animation

A Tyrannosaurus raised by Pteranodons, riding a train between geological periods.

• Season 1

The District

2000–2004·CBS·Crime

A police chief running Washington on statistics, loosely modelled on the man who did it in New York.

• Season 1

Dog the Bounty Hunter

2004–2012·A&E·Documentary

A Hawaii bail bondsman and his family, in the series that made A&E a reality network.

• Season 1

Doraemon (2005)

2005–·TV Asahi·Animation

The robot cat from the twenty-second century, remade in 2005 with an entirely new voice cast after twenty-six years of the old one.

• Season 1

The Ellen DeGeneres Show

2003–2022·Syndication·Comedy

Nineteen years of daytime, opening on a host dancing her way in through the audience.

• Seasons 1–3

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

2009–2010·MBS / TBS·Animation

Alchemical circles and transmutation, animated at a scale the first adaptation could not afford.

• Season 1

George Lopez

2002–2007·ABC·Comedy

A Los Angeles factory manager and the family around him, and the longest-running American sitcom led by a Latino cast.

• Season 1

Ghost Adventures

2008–·Travel Channel·Documentary

Three men locking themselves overnight inside buildings they believe are haunted.

• Season 1

Greek

2007–2011·ABC Family·Comedy

Fraternity and sorority life at a fictional Ohio university, taken seriously enough to run four seasons.

• Season 1

The Guardian

2001–2004·CBS·Drama

A corporate lawyer sentenced to community service in child advocacy, which turns out to be the real job.

• Season 1
• Seasons 2–3

H2O: Just Add Water

2006–2010·Network Ten·Drama

Three Gold Coast girls who become mermaids on contact with water, and an Australian export that reached a hundred and twenty countries.

• Season 1

Hajime no Ippo

2000–2014·Nippon TV·Animation

A bullied shopkeeper's son taken into a boxing gym, and one of the few sports series that gets the training right.

• Season 1

Hana Yori Dango

2005–2007·TBS·Drama

The manga that became Boys Over Flowers in Korea and Meteor Garden in Taiwan, in its Japanese live-action form.

• Season 1

Handy Manny

2006–2011·Playhouse Disney·Animation

A bilingual repairman whose tools talk, and the programme that taught a generation of American children their first Spanish.

• Season 1

Happy Tree Friends

2000–·Mondo Media·Animation

Woodland animals drawn in the shape of greetings cards and then killed in every episode, made for the web years before television wanted it.

• Season 1

Higher Ground

2000·Fox Family·Drama

A wilderness school for troubled teenagers, cancelled after one season and remembered for its cast list.

• Season 1

How It's Made

2001–·Discovery Channel·Documentary

Manufacturing filmed without a presenter, a plot or a raised voice, for over thirty seasons.

• Season 15

I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!

2002–·ITV·Documentary

Celebrities in an Australian jungle, and one of the few formats whose titles are remade from scratch every series.

• Season 24

In Plain Sight

2008–2012·USA Network·Crime

A US marshal running witness protection in Albuquerque.

• Season 1

Inspector George Gently

2007–2017·BBC One·Crime

A Northumberland detective in the 1960s, and a series that uses the decade for its politics rather than its clothes.

• Season 2

Iris

2009·KBS2·Drama

A secret agent thriller shot across five countries, and the most expensive Korean drama made to that point.

• Season 1

Iron Chef America

2005–2018·Food Network·Documentary

The Fuji format remade in a Food Network kitchen, with the man in the gold cape replaced by a chairman.

• Season 1

Jewel in the Palace

2003–2004·MBC·Drama

A kitchen servant who rises to be the king's physician, and the drama that carried Korean television across Asia.

• Season 1

Jimmy Kimmel Live!

2003–·ABC·Comedy

ABC's late-night hour, opening on a Hollywood Boulevard that the show films on the pavement outside.

• Season 23

Joey

2004–2006·NBC·Comedy

The Friends spin-off, moving one character to Los Angeles and finding out how much of the show had been the other five.

• Season 1

Johnny Test

2005–2014·Kids' WB / Cartoon Network·Animation

A boy who lets his scientist sisters test inventions on him in exchange for whatever he wants that week.

• Season 1

Jumong

2006–2007·MBC·Drama

The founding of Goguryeo across eighty-one episodes, and one of the largest audiences Korean television has held.

• Season 1

Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight

2008–2009·The CW·Sci-Fi

Kamen Rider Ryuki rebuilt for American Saturday mornings, and the only Kamen Rider to win an Emmy.

• Season 1

Kath & Kim

2002–2007·ABC (Australia)·Comedy

A mother and daughter in outer-suburban Melbourne, and the most quoted Australian comedy of its decade.

• Season 2

Kitchen Nightmares

2007–·Fox·Documentary

The American Ramsay format, louder than the Channel 4 original it was remade from.

• Season 1

Lark Rise to Candleford

2008–2011·BBC One·Drama

Flora Thompson's hamlet and its market town, adapted into four years of BBC Sunday evenings.

• Season 1

Las Vegas

2003–2008·NBC·Drama

Casino surveillance as an ensemble drama, opening on the Strip at the hour it looks best.

• Season 1

Lie to Me

2009–2011·Fox·Crime

A deception expert reading faces frame by frame, built on the research of the psychologist who consulted on it.

• Season 1

Life (2007)

2007–2009·NBC·Crime

A detective released after twelve years for a crime he did not commit, handed back his badge and a very large settlement.

• Season 1

The Lone Gunmen

2001·Fox·Sci-Fi

The X-Files spin-off about its three conspiracy theorists, cancelled after thirteen episodes.

• Season 1

Maggie and the Ferocious Beast

2000–2002·Teletoon·Animation

A girl, a spotted beast and a pig live on Nowhere Land, where nothing much goes wrong.

• Season 1

Man v. Food

2008–2022·Travel Channel / Cooking Channel·Documentary

A presenter attempting restaurant eating challenges built to be impossible, and losing more often than not.

• Season 10

MasterChef Australia

2009–·Network Ten·Documentary

The British format remade at far greater length, and for several years the most watched thing on Australian television.

• Season 2

Max & Ruby

2002–2020·Nick Jr. / Treehouse TV·Animation

A rabbit of three and his sister of seven, in a world where no adult ever appears on screen.

• Season 1

McLeod's Daughters

2001–2009·Nine Network·Drama

Two half-sisters who inherit a South Australian cattle station and run it with an all-female crew.

• Season 1
• Season 5

Meadowlands

2007·Showtime / Channel 4·Drama

A family in witness protection on an estate where everyone else is hiding something too.

• Season 1

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

2006–2009·Tokyo MX·Animation

A schoolgirl who can rewrite reality and has not been told, in an adaptation that first broadcast its episodes deliberately out of order.

• Season 1
• Season 2

Midnight Diner (2009)

2009–2014·MBS·Drama

The original MBS run of the Shinjuku diner open from midnight to seven, seven years before Netflix continued it as Tokyo Stories.

• Season 1

Miffy and Friends

2003–2005·KRO / CITV·Animation

Dick Bruna's rabbit animated in stop motion, keeping the flat colours and the two-dot face intact.

• Season 1

The Mole

2001–2008·ABC·Documentary

Contestants building a prize fund while one of them sabotages it, and nobody knows which.

• Season 1

Monster

2004–2005·Nippon TV·Animation

Restrained to the point of austerity — portraits, European streets and a single held tone, for a series about a doctor who saved the wrong life.

• Season 1

Mr. Bean: The Animated Series

2002–2019·ITV·Animation

The character animated, which suits him — he barely spoke in live action either.

• Season 1

The Mr. Men Show

2008–2009·Cartoon Network·Animation

Roger Hargreaves' shapes rebuilt as a sketch show, forty years after the books.

• Season 2

MXC

2003–2007·Spike·Comedy

Takeshi's Castle redubbed into something considerably ruder, with the original footage left exactly as it was.

• Season 1

My Family

2000–2011·BBC One·Comedy

A Chiswick dentist and the relatives he cannot get out of the house, written by a rotating room on the American model.

• Season 3
• Season 6

My Name Is Earl

2005–2009·NBC·Comedy

A petty criminal working through a written list of everything he has done wrong, one item an episode.

• Season 1

My Wife and Kids

2001–2005·ABC·Comedy

Damon Wayans running a household on a theory of parenting he makes up as he goes.

• Season 4

The Naked Brothers Band

2007–2009·Nickelodeon·Comedy

A mockumentary about a children's rock band, played by two brothers who really were one.

• Season 1

The New Adventures of Old Christine

2006–2010·CBS·Comedy

A divorced mother whose former husband's new girlfriend is also called Christine, which is where the title comes from.

• Season 1

Not Going Out

2006–·BBC One·Comedy

Lee Mack's flat-share sitcom, written joke-first and the longest-running British studio comedy still in production.

• Season 1

Only Connect

2008–·BBC Four / BBC Two·Documentary

A quiz whose easiest round asks what four things have in common, and whose hardest does not admit there is a connection at all.

• Season 1

Oswald

2001–2003·Nickelodeon·Animation

A blue octopus and his dachshund in a town drawn without a straight line in it.

• Season 1

Peppa Pig

2004–·Channel 5·Animation

A preschool series drawn in flat two dimensions and sold to a hundred and eighty countries, which is more than almost anything else British television has made.

• Season 1

A Place in the Sun

2000–·Channel 4·Documentary

British buyers shown three houses abroad, running daily for a quarter of a century.

• Season 1

Pocoyo

2005–2010·La 2 / CITV·Animation

A Spanish preschool series played out on plain white, with no scenery at all to compete with the four-year-old and the narrator who argues with him.

• Season 1

Popee the Performer

2000–2001·Kids Station·Animation

A circus in the desert, animated in early CGI and far more violent than its length suggests.

• Season 1

Power Rangers Dino Thunder

2004·ABC Family·Sci-Fi

The season that brought the original green ranger back as a palaeontology teacher.

• Season 1

Power Rangers Jungle Fury

2008·Toon Disney·Sci-Fi

Kung fu students who take animal spirits, working out of a pizza parlour.

• Season 1

Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue

2000·Fox Kids·Sci-Fi

A season whose rangers are a government rescue service rather than teenagers chosen by a wizard.

• Season 1

Power Rangers Mystic Force

2006·Toon Disney·Sci-Fi

The magic season, with wands instead of morphers and a mother among the rangers.

• Season 1

Power Rangers Ninja Storm

2003·ABC Family·Sci-Fi