Frozen Planet
Ice filmed as architecture, and George Fenton again — twenty-six seconds with no animal in them at all.
Frozen Planet opens with a main title sequence of 26 seconds.
At 26 seconds, it opens well under the 37-second median for documentary sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on BBC One in 2011, when A Question of Sport, Postman Pat and Crimewatch were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
26sThe opening sequence.
More documentary opening titles from the 2010s
1 sequence
The Great British Bake Off
Bunting, a tent and a xylophone — twenty seconds of deliberate gentleness, and one of the most effective pieces of format branding on British television.
- Season 1
1 sequenceStorage Wars
Abandoned storage lockers auctioned unseen, with the bidders introduced like a heist crew.
- Season 1
1 sequenceDance Moms
A Pittsburgh dance studio, the children in it, and the mothers watching from behind the glass.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Jinx
Andrew Jarecki's Robert Durst films, opened by a sequence that tells you nothing and implies everything.
- Season 1
1 sequenceQueer Eye
Two minutes of the five hosts introduced one at a time, in the format's own house style of relentless warmth.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMaking a Murderer
Manitowoc County in winter over a plucked string figure — the sequence that defined what a Netflix true-crime series would look like for the next decade.
- Season 1