Skip to content
TVTitles

Crime · 1980s

The 1980s account for 26 of the 337 crime shows here, and 28 opening sequences.

CBS carries the most, with nine.

One rebuilt its titles mid-run: The Bill, with three sequences.

26 shows28 sequences

Still from the opening titles of Miami Vice1 sequence

Miami Vice

1984–1990NBCCrime

Flamingos, jai alai and pastel architecture over Jan Hammer — a title sequence that sold an entire aesthetic and arguably a city.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Murder, She Wrote1 sequence

Murder, She Wrote

1984–1996CBSCrime

A typewriter, a bicycle and Cabot Cove — twelve seasons of the most reassuring opening ever attached to a programme about repeated homicide.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Agatha Christie's Poirot1 sequence

Agatha Christie's Poirot

1989–2013ITVCrime

Art Deco geometry and Christopher Gunning's theme — a title sequence that establishes the period, the register and the fastidiousness of the detective in one gesture.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Magnum, P.I.1 sequence

Magnum, P.I.

1980–1988CBSCrime

Hawaii, a Ferrari and a moustache, over a theme so brash it dates the decade to within about eighteen months.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Matlock1 sequence

Matlock

1986–1995NBC / ABCCrime

Andy Griffith as a defence attorney in a grey suit, nine seasons long.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of In the Heat of the Night1 sequence

In the Heat of the Night

1988–1995NBC / CBSCrime

The 1967 film continued as a series, with Carroll O'Connor as the chief.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Hill Street Blues1 sequence

Hill Street Blues

1981–1987NBCCrime

Mike Post's piano over squad cars pulling out into snow — the sequence that taught American drama an opening could be melancholy rather than exciting.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Cagney & Lacey1 sequence

Cagney & Lacey

1981–1988CBSCrime

Two detectives introduced as colleagues rather than as a novelty, which in 1981 was itself the statement.

  • Season 2
Still from the opening titles of Remington Steele1 sequence

Remington Steele

1982–1987NBCCrime

A narrated premise about a detective agency with an invented boss, delivered by the woman who invented him.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of T. J. Hooker1 sequence

T. J. Hooker

1982–1986ABC / CBSCrime

William Shatner back in uniform between Star Trek films.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Simon & Simon1 sequence

Simon & Simon

1981–1989CBSCrime

Two brothers running a San Diego detective agency with opposite methods.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Riptide1 sequence

Riptide

1984–1986NBCCrime

Two Vietnam veterans running a detective agency from a boat, with a helicopter called the Screaming Mimi.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of 21 Jump Street1 sequence

21 Jump Street

1987–1990FoxCrime

Officers young enough to pass for pupils, in one of the four shows Fox launched its network with.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes1 sequence

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

1984–1994ITV (Granada)Crime

Jeremy Brett's Holmes, and the Victorian-illustration open Granada reused across every retitled run of the series.

  • Seasons 1–2
Still from the opening titles of The Bill3 sequences

The Bill

1983–2010ITVCrime

A London police station shot at ground level, under a rule the programme kept for twenty-seven years: no scene an officer is not present for.

  • Season 1
  • Season 4
  • Season 5
Still from the opening titles of Boon1 sequence

Boon

1986–1995ITVCrime

A retired fireman on a motorcycle, in the ITV drama that ran nine years on the strength of Jim Diamond's theme.

  • Season 5
Still from the opening titles of Dempsey and Makepeace1 sequence

Dempsey and Makepeace

1985–1986ITVCrime

An American detective seconded to London and the aristocrat he is partnered with, who married in real life.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Equalizer (1985)1 sequence

The Equalizer (1985)

1985–1989CBSCrime

A retired intelligence officer advertising his services in the classifieds, scored by Stewart Copeland the year after the Police stopped.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Father Dowling Mysteries1 sequence

Father Dowling Mysteries

1989–1991NBC / ABCCrime

A Chicago priest and a nun solving murders, cancelled by NBC and picked up by ABC.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Hardcastle and McCormick1 sequence

Hardcastle and McCormick

1983–1986ABCCrime

A retired judge and the ex-convict he paroles into being his driver, chasing the cases he could not convict.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Jake and the Fatman1 sequence

Jake and the Fatman

1987–1992CBSCrime

A Hawaii prosecutor and his investigator, spun out of a single episode of Matlock.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Matt Houston1 sequence

Matt Houston

1982–1985ABCCrime

A Texas oil heir running a detective agency in Los Angeles because he is bored.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of The Ruth Rendell Mysteries1 sequence

The Ruth Rendell Mysteries

1987–2000ITVCrime

Rendell adapted for thirteen years, mostly as Wexford and occasionally as the standalone novels.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Sherlock Holmes (1984)1 sequence

Sherlock Holmes (1984)

1984–1994ITVCrime

Granada's adaptation, played on a Baker Street built outdoors in Manchester and continued until Jeremy Brett could no longer work.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Spenser: For Hire1 sequence

Spenser: For Hire

1985–1988ABCCrime

Robert B. Parker's Boston detective, with Avery Brooks as Hawk in the part that made him.

  • Season 1
Still from the opening titles of Wiseguy1 sequence

Wiseguy

1987–1990CBSCrime

An undercover agent left inside one organisation for a whole arc at a time, which is roughly where American television learned to serialise.

  • Season 1