Documentary · 2000s
61 shows64 sequences
2 sequencesSurvivor
2000–CBSDocumentary
The competition format that rebuilt American primetime, and rebuilds its titles for every location.
- Season 1
- Season 50
1 sequenceHell's Kitchen
2005–FoxDocumentary
Flames, a skull made of a chef's hat, and Gordon Ramsay shouting — the titles tell you exactly what the hour is.
- Season 1
1 sequenceRuPaul's Drag Race
2009–Logo / VH1 / MTVDocumentary
Eighteen seconds that get remade every season — new logo treatment, new track, new set of queens.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAmerican Idol
2002–Fox / ABCDocumentary
The talent format that ran American primetime for a decade, opening on a spotlight and a logo that spins.
- Season 1
2 sequencesTop Gear
2002–BBC TwoDocumentary
Twenty-one seconds of engine noise and a rock riff — a motoring programme that opens like a trailer for itself.
- Season 1
- Season 23
1 sequenceProject Runway
2004–Bravo / LifetimeDocumentary
Designers given a day and a budget, and Heidi Klum telling one of them they are out.
- Seasons 1–4
1 sequenceMythBusters
2003–2018Discovery ChannelDocumentary
Two special-effects builders testing folklore with explosives, introduced by a montage of the explosives.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Biggest Loser
2004–2020NBCDocumentary
A weight-loss competition whose titles were rebuilt around whichever pairing the season had chosen.
- Season 5
1 sequencePawn Stars
2009–HistoryDocumentary
A Las Vegas pawn shop, three generations of one family, and a guy they call an expert once an episode.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJersey Shore
2009–2012MTVDocumentary
Eight housemates in Seaside Heights, and the most watched series MTV has ever had.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Apprentice
2004–NBCDocumentary
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
1 sequenceDeadliest Catch
2005–Discovery ChannelDocumentary
Bering Sea crab boats, opening on the sea doing the thing that makes the programme's title literal.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTop Chef
2006–BravoDocumentary
Knives on a board and a countdown, in the cooking competition that took itself seriously first.
- Season 1
1 sequenceKeeping Up with the Kardashians
2007–2021E!Documentary
Fourteen years of a family photograph rebuilt every season, and ten seconds to do it in.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Hills
2006–2010MTVDocumentary
The Laguna Beach spin-off that moved to Los Angeles, and the show that made the word scripted an argument.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe X Factor
2004–2018ITVDocumentary
Simon Cowell's format after Pop Idol, opening on a spotlight sweep and a fanfare rebuilt every few series.
- Season 1
1 sequenceFear Factor
2001–2012NBCDocumentary
The Dutch format that asked contestants to eat things, opening on a montage of them regretting it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Bachelor
2002–ABCDocumentary
The format that turned courtship into an elimination bracket, and gave the rose its own verb.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Osbournes
2002–2005MTVDocumentary
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
2 sequencesBig Brother (UK)
2000–Channel 4 / ITVDocumentary
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
1 sequenceLaguna Beach
2004–2006MTVDocumentary
Real teenagers filmed like a drama, and the format most of MTV's next decade was built on.
- Season 1
1 sequenceWho Do You Think You Are?
2004–BBC OneDocumentary
One celebrity's ancestry per episode, opening on photographs that dissolve into each other backwards.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAnthony Bourdain: No Reservations
2005–2012Travel ChannelDocumentary
The travel programme that treated a meal as reporting, opening on a passport stamp and a guitar line.
- Season 1
1 sequenceLong Way Round
2004Sky OneDocumentary
Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman riding from London to New York the long way, and the map that opens each leg.
- Season 1
1 sequenceIce Road Truckers
2007–2017HistoryDocumentary
Haulage across frozen lakes in the Northwest Territories, opening on the ice doing what the ice does.
- Season 1
1 sequenceExtreme Makeover: Home Edition
2003–2020ABCDocumentary
A family's house rebuilt in a week, opening on the bus that is about to move.
- Season 3
1 sequencePlanet Earth
2006BBC OneDocumentary
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
1 sequenceDragons' Den
2005–BBC TwoDocumentary
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
1 sequenceThe Blue Planet
2001BBC OneDocumentary
The first of the BBC's ocean series, and the template its sequel and the Planet Earth films all inherited.
- Season 1
1 sequenceSupernanny
2004–Channel 4Documentary
Jo Frost arriving by taxi to reorganise a household, every week, for twenty years.
- Season 4
1 sequenceWife Swap
2003–2009Channel 4Documentary
Two households exchanged for a fortnight, in ten seconds of titles that give away the whole premise.
- Season 1
1 sequenceDepartures
2008–2012OLN (Canada)Documentary
Two friends travelling for a year with a cameraman, shot with more care than the format usually gets.
- Season 1
1 sequence19 Kids and Counting
2008–2015TLCDocumentary
An Arkansas family of twenty-one, and the programme TLC built a decade of its schedule around.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Amazing Race
2001–CBSDocumentary
A race around the world, opening on a map and a countdown that has won ten Emmys for its programme.
- Season 10
1 sequenceAmerica's Next Top Model
2003–2018UPN / The CWDocumentary
The format that ran for twenty-four cycles and rebuilt its titles for most of them.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAncient Aliens
2009–HistoryDocumentary
A documentary series whose answer to every question it raises is the same one.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAustralian Survivor
2002–Network TenDocumentary
The format remade locally three separate times before it finally stuck.
- Season 2
1 sequenceBad Girls Club
2006–2017OxygenDocumentary
Seven women in a house chosen for how badly they were expected to get on.
- Season 2
1 sequenceBattleBots
2000–2002Comedy CentralDocumentary
Home-built robots destroying each other inside a perspex box, and the reason a good many engineers exist.
- Season 1
1 sequenceBondi Rescue
2006–Network TenDocumentary
The lifeguards at Bondi Beach, filmed across a summer at a time.
- Season 8
1 sequenceBritain's Got Talent
2007–ITVDocumentary
The variety format that exported itself to seventy countries, and the theme it kept for its first four series.
- Seasons 1–4
1 sequenceThe Crocodile Hunter Diaries
2002–2006Animal PlanetDocumentary
The spin-off following the zoo's staff between expeditions, rather than Irwin in the field.
- Season 1
1 sequenceDancing on Ice
2006–ITVDocumentary
Celebrities skating in pairs, judged by Torvill and Dean, who had won the thing for real.
- Season 7
1 sequenceDeadly Women
2005–2021Discovery Channel / Investigation DiscoveryDocumentary
Murders committed by women, reconstructed by actors and narrated flat, across fourteen seasons of the Investigation Discovery house style.
- Season 1
1 sequenceDog the Bounty Hunter
2004–2012A&EDocumentary
A Hawaii bail bondsman and his family, in the series that made A&E a reality network.
- Season 1
1 sequenceGhost Adventures
2008–Travel ChannelDocumentary
Three men locking themselves overnight inside buildings they believe are haunted.
- Season 1
1 sequenceHow It's Made
2001–Discovery ChannelDocumentary
Manufacturing filmed without a presenter, a plot or a raised voice, for over thirty seasons.
- Season 15
1 sequenceI'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!
2002–ITVDocumentary
Celebrities in an Australian jungle, and one of the few formats whose titles are remade from scratch every series.
- Season 24
1 sequenceIron Chef America
2005–2018Food NetworkDocumentary
The Fuji format remade in a Food Network kitchen, with the man in the gold cape replaced by a chairman.
- Season 1
1 sequenceKitchen Nightmares
2007–FoxDocumentary
The American Ramsay format, louder than the Channel 4 original it was remade from.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMan v. Food
2008–2022Travel Channel / Cooking ChannelDocumentary
A presenter attempting restaurant eating challenges built to be impossible, and losing more often than not.
- Season 10
1 sequenceMasterChef Australia
2009–Network TenDocumentary
The British format remade at far greater length, and for several years the most watched thing on Australian television.
- Season 2
1 sequenceThe Mole
2001–2008ABCDocumentary
Contestants building a prize fund while one of them sabotages it, and nobody knows which.
- Season 1
1 sequenceOnly Connect
2008–BBC Four / BBC TwoDocumentary
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
1 sequenceA Place in the Sun
2000–Channel 4Documentary
British buyers shown three houses abroad, running daily for a quarter of a century.
- Season 1
1 sequenceRiver Monsters
2009–2017Animal PlanetDocumentary
A biologist catching freshwater fish large enough to account for the local legends about them.
- Season 1
1 sequenceShark Tank
2009–ABCDocumentary
The American Dragons' Den, with the same format's Japanese parent behind both.
- Season 1
1 sequenceSo You Think You Can Dance
2005–2024FoxDocumentary
The dance contest built to the Idol template by Idol's own producer, and one of the few competition formats to run its production credits over the performance rather than after it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceStrictly Come Dancing
2004–BBC OneDocumentary
The BBC's ballroom format, sold to fifty-odd countries as Dancing with the Stars and kept at home under its own name.
- Season 1
1 sequenceTemptation Island
2001–2003FoxDocumentary
Unmarried couples separated onto an island of singles, and the format that drew the first serious wave of complaints about American reality television.
- Season 1
1 sequenceWheeler Dealers
2003–2023Discovery Real Time / Discovery ChannelDocumentary
One man buys a car badly, the other repairs it, and the profit is announced at the end whether there is any or not.
- Season 1