Dead Set
A zombie outbreak that the Big Brother house does not notice, written by Charlie Brooker before Black Mirror.
Dead Set opens with a main title sequence of 9 seconds.
At 9 seconds, it opens well under the 50-second median for horror sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on E4 in 2008, when Skins and The Inbetweeners were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
9sFan upload. Nine seconds, which is about as long as the format it is parodying gave its own titles.
More horror opening titles from the 2000s
1 sequence
Supernatural
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.
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The Vampire Diaries
A short title card: the name in gold serif lettering rising over a fogbound road at night, then alone on black.
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1 sequenceTrue Blood
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
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Jennifer Love Hewitt talking to the dead in a small Maryland town.
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1 sequenceParanoia Agent
Satoshi Kon's only television series, opened by the entire cast laughing in front of disasters.
- Season 1
1 sequenceCarnivàle
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