Hardcastle and McCormick
A retired judge and the ex-convict he paroles into being his driver, chasing the cases he could not convict.
Hardcastle and McCormick opens with a main title sequence of 94 seconds.
At 94 seconds, it opens well above the 47-second median for crime sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on ABC in 1983, when One Life to Live, All My Children and The Bugs Bunny Show were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
94sNinety-four seconds, which is what an hour-long action series opened with in 1983.
More crime opening titles from the 1980s
1 sequenceMiami Vice
Flamingos, jai alai and pastel architecture over Jan Hammer — a title sequence that sold an entire aesthetic and arguably a city.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMurder, She Wrote
A typewriter, a bicycle and Cabot Cove — twelve seasons of the most reassuring opening ever attached to a programme about repeated homicide.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAgatha Christie's Poirot
Art Deco geometry and Christopher Gunning's theme — a title sequence that establishes the period, the register and the fastidiousness of the detective in one gesture.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMagnum, P.I.
Hawaii, a Ferrari and a moustache, over a theme so brash it dates the decade to within about eighteen months.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMatlock
Andy Griffith as a defence attorney in a grey suit, nine seasons long.
- Season 1
1 sequenceIn the Heat of the Night
The 1967 film continued as a series, with Carroll O'Connor as the chief.
- Season 1