Farscape
1999–2003Sci-Fi ChannelSci-Fi
A Henson creature workshop pointed at space opera, and an opening that halves in ambition halfway through the run — the narrated version explaining the premise gives way to one that assumes you already know it.
Farscape rebuilt its titles: four distinct opening sequences are catalogued here across seasons 1–4, running between 46 and 64 seconds.
It arrived on Sci-Fi Channel in 1999, when Mystery Science Theater 3000, Stargate SG-1 and The Outer Limits (1995) were also on the network.
Only 139 of the 2,618 shows catalogued here changed their titles at all; Farscape did so three times.
All 4 opening title sequences
Season 1
46sCrichton narrates his own predicament over Subvision's theme — the astronaut, the wormhole, and the ship full of escaped prisoners, all explained before the episode starts.
Season 2
48sSame arrangement and same narration, re-cut around the second season's cast.
Season 3
64sThe break. Guy Gross replaces Subvision's theme with a harder arrangement, the explanatory narration is dropped, and the sequence is rebuilt around action rather than setup.
Season 4
64sThe final season, re-cut again on Gross's arrangement.
More sci-fi opening titles from the 1990s
5 sequences
The X-Files
One sequence held untouched for seven years, then rebuilt twice as the cast turned over. The card at the end is the real trick: it reads 'The Truth Is Out There' most weeks, and something else entirely more than twenty times.
- Seasons 1–7
- Season 8
- Season 9
- and 2 more
4 sequences
Stargate SG-1
The gate opening, every week, for ten years — David Arnold's film theme rearranged for television and a sequence that never stopped being about one piece of hardware.
- Season 1
- Season 6
- Season 9
- and 1 more
1 sequence
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Japanese Super Sentai footage cut against American actors, and the biggest thing on children's television for three years.
- Season 1
2 sequences
Star Trek: Voyager
The most purely beautiful of the Trek openings — Voyager skimming a comet, threading a nebula and sliding past a gas giant while Jerry Goldsmith writes the loneliest theme in the franchise. Nothing about it is in a hurry to get home.
- Seasons 1–3
- Seasons 4–7
5 sequences
Babylon 5
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
- Season 2
- Season 3
- and 2 more
2 sequences
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
A title sequence that starts still and learns to move. The station hangs motionless in the early years; by the war it is surrounded by traffic, which is the whole arc of the show in ninety seconds.
- Seasons 1–3
- Seasons 4–7