J
45 shows46 sequences
1 sequenceJabberjaw
1976–1978ABCAnimation
A drumming shark in an underwater band, which is Scooby-Doo restaged in 2076 with Curly Howard's voice.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJack Ryan
2018–2023Prime VideoDrama
Satellite imagery, intercepted signals and maps — an analyst's view of the world rather than a field agent's.
- Season 2
1 sequenceJackanory
1965–1996BBC OneDrama
One actor, one chair, one book read aloud for fifteen minutes — the least televisual idea the BBC ever ran for thirty years.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJackie Chan Adventures
2000–2005Kids' WBAnimation
Jackie Chan as an archaeologist hunting talismans, with the real Chan answering fan questions at the end of each episode.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJAG
1995–2005NBC / CBSDrama
Navy lawyers across ten seasons, and the series NCIS was spun out of.
- Season 9
1 sequenceJake 2.0
2003–2004UPNSci-Fi
An NSA computer technician infused with nanites in an accident, and made a field agent because of it.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJake and the Fatman
1987–1992CBSCrime
A Hawaii prosecutor and his investigator, spun out of a single episode of Matlock.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJamie and the Magic Torch
1976–1979ITVAnimation
A torch that opens a hole in the bedroom floor down a helter-skelter into Cuckoo Land.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Jamie Foxx Show
1996–2001The WBComedy
A hotel in Los Angeles run by relatives, and the nephew who wants to act instead.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJane the Virgin
2014–2019The CWComedy
A telenovela about a woman inside a telenovela, opened in the form it is parodying and loving at once.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJay Jay the Jet Plane
1998–2005PBS KidsAnimation
Talking aeroplanes at a small airfield, made first on video and later for television.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJeeves and Wooster
1990–1993ITVComedy
Wodehouse played by Fry and Laurie, who had spent the previous decade writing sketches together.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Jeffersons
1975–1985CBSComedy
'Movin' On Up' over a family arriving at a Manhattan apartment — a theme that functions as a plot summary and a thesis at once.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJem and the Holograms
1985–1988SyndicationAnimation
A record executive with a holographic alter ego, and a series that stopped for a music video every episode.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJeremiah
2002–2004ShowtimeSci-Fi
J. Michael Straczynski's series about a world where everyone over puberty died fifteen years ago.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJericho
2006–2008CBSDrama
Thirteen seconds and a mushroom cloud on the horizon, seen from a Kansas town that has no idea what happened.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJericho (2016)
2016ITVDrama
A shanty town thrown up under a Victorian railway viaduct in Yorkshire, and ITV's attempt at a British western.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJersey Shore
2009–2012MTVDocumentary
Eight housemates in Seaside Heights, and the most watched series MTV has ever had.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJesse
1998–2000NBCComedy
A single mother working in her father's Buffalo bar while training as a nurse.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJessica Jones
2015–2019NetflixCrime
Purple watercolour bleeding across Hell's Kitchen while a noir trumpet plays — the colour of the villain seeping into every frame before he is named.
- Seasons 1–3
1 sequenceJesus of Nazareth
1977RAI / ITVDrama
Zeffirelli's six-hour life of Christ, cast so deeply that the titles are mostly name cards.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Jetsons
1962–1963ABCAnimation
The same studio's future to answer its own past, with a theme that names the whole family in about fifteen seconds.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJewel in the Palace
2003–2004MBCDrama
A kitchen servant who rises to be the king's physician, and the drama that carried Korean television across Asia.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJimmy Kimmel Live!
2003–ABCComedy
ABC's late-night hour, opening on a Hollywood Boulevard that the show films on the pavement outside.
- Season 23
1 sequenceThe Jinx
2015–2024HBODocumentary
Andrew Jarecki's Robert Durst films, opened by a sequence that tells you nothing and implies everything.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJoan of Arcadia
2003–2005CBSDrama
A teenager who talks to God, introduced by a Joan Osborne song that asks what if God were one of us — the rare case of a theme predating and defining the premise.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJoey
2004–2006NBCComedy
The Friends spin-off, moving one character to Los Angeles and finding out how much of the show had been the other five.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJohn Adams
2008HBODrama
The thirteen colonies' flags and founding documents animated into a single banner, over a fife-and-drum theme.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJohn from Cincinnati
2007HBODrama
David Milch's surfing series, cancelled after one season and still argued about.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe John Larroquette Show
1993–1996NBCComedy
A recovering alcoholic managing a bus terminal at night, in a sitcom NBC steadily made lighter against its writers' wishes.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJohnny Bravo
1997–2004Cartoon NetworkAnimation
A pompadour, a bass riff and a character who has never once been correct about anything.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJohnny Test
2005–2014Kids' WB / Cartoon NetworkAnimation
A boy who lets his scientist sisters test inventions on him in exchange for whatever he wants that week.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJosie and the Pussycats
1970–1971CBSAnimation
An Archie Comics spin-off built around a band, with records released under the characters' names.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Journey of Allen Strange
1997–2000NickelodeonSci-Fi
An alien stranded on Earth and taken in by the family who find him.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Joy of Painting
1983–1994PBSDocumentary
Bob Ross finishing a landscape in twenty-six minutes, over thirty-one seasons and a permanent afterlife online.
- Season 29
1 sequenceJudge Judy
1996–2021SyndicationDocumentary
Small claims heard by a former family court judge who lets almost nobody finish a sentence.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJudging Amy
1999–2005CBSDrama
A family court judge and her social worker mother, built from the creator's own mother's career.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJujutsu Kaisen
2020–MBS / TBSAnimation
Eve's 'Kaikai Kitan' over animation that keeps breaking its own frame — one of the sequences that made the studio's reputation.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJulia
2022–2023HBO MaxDrama
Butter, copper pans and a test kitchen — cooking shot the way the era's own television shot it, with none of the modern gloss.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJumong
2006–2007MBCDrama
The founding of Goguryeo across eighty-one episodes, and one of the largest audiences Korean television has held.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJurassic World: Camp Cretaceous
2020–2022NetflixAnimation
Six children on Isla Nublar during the events of the 2015 film, which nobody comes to collect.
- Season 1
2 sequencesJust Shoot Me!
1997–2003NBCComedy
A fashion magazine staffed by people who should not be near one. The titles start as a full sequence and end as a logo.
- Season 1
- Seasons 3–5
1 sequenceJust the Ten of Us
1988–1990ABCComedy
The Growing Pains teacher spun off with eight children of his own.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJustice League
2001–2006Cartoon NetworkAnimation
An orchestral fanfare and seven heroes introduced in sequence, from the same production team as Batman: The Animated Series and with the same refusal to condescend.
- Season 1
1 sequenceJustified
2010–2015FXCrime
Kentucky hills and hip-hop — Gangstagrass over holler country, which should not work and entirely does.
- Season 6