Bad Girls
A women's prison wing written by two of Prisoner Cell Block H's admirers, and ITV's answer to it.
Bad Girls opens with a main title sequence of 23 seconds.
At 23 seconds, it opens well under the 50-second median for drama sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on ITV in 1999, when Thomas & Friends, Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends and Birds of a Feather were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
23sThe gate approached at speed and in blur, twenty-three seconds.
More drama opening titles from the 1990s
1 sequence
The Sopranos
Ninety seconds of a man driving home from the Lincoln Tunnel to North Caldwell. No cast montage, no highlights — just the commute, which turns out to be the whole show.
- Seasons 1–6
2 sequences
Twin Peaks
A bird, a sawmill blade and a waterfall, over Angelo Badalamenti at a tempo no network would approve today — ninety seconds of a town being described before anyone in it speaks.
- Seasons 1–2
- Season 3
2 sequences
ER
James Newton Howard's theme over sliding doors, gurneys and light — the template every medical drama since has either copied or deliberately avoided.
- Season 1
- Season 10
1 sequence
Dawson's Creek
Paula Cole over a Massachusetts creek — a theme so tied to the show that its absence from the streaming release became a story in itself.
- Season 1
2 sequences
The West Wing
Oil portraits, flags and W.G. Snuffy Walden's brass — an opening that treats the executive branch as a cathedral, which is the show's entire register.
- Season 1
- Season 5
1 sequenceBeverly Hills, 90210
Freeze-frames of a cast grinning at the camera over a synth-brass hook — the template every teen drama of the decade copied.
- Season 1