Babylon 5
1993–1998SyndicationTNTSci-Fi
Five seasons, five openings, and each one changes who is allowed to speak. The monologue passes from the station's first commander to his successor to his second-in-command, then splinters across the whole cast, then stops being a monologue at all.
Season 1
Commander Sinclair speaks it: the dawn of the third age of mankind, ten years after the Earth–Minbari war. The station is introduced as a place rather than as a cast, the camera holding on it while the narration explains what it is for.
Season 2
Sinclair is gone and Captain Sheridan inherits both the station and the narration. The words are rewritten around a war that has not started yet, and Christopher Franke rescores the theme rather than reusing it.
Season 3
Ivanova narrates, and the monologue concedes: the project was the last, best hope for peace, and it failed. What replaces that hope — the last, best hope for victory — is the line the series turns on.
Season 4
No narrator at all. The monologue is broken into single lines and handed round the cast, so the year is described by the people living through it instead of summarised over them.
Season 5
Not a monologue any more. The titles become a montage of voices and moments from the four years behind them, which makes the opening and the previously-on the same thing.