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106 shows121 sequences

1 sequence

Wacky Races

1968–1969CBSAnimation

Eleven cars introduced one at a time by a narrator, which is a title sequence that is also the entire premise.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wagon Train

1957–1965NBC / ABCDrama

A wagon company crossing to California, and the series Gene Roddenberry pitched Star Trek against.

Season 1

1 sequence

Walker

2021–2024The CWDrama

Walker, Texas Ranger remade for the CW with the ranger's family moved into the foreground.

Season 1

1 sequence

Walker, Texas Ranger

1993–2001CBSCrime

Chuck Norris as a Ranger, with a theme song he sings himself from the third season on.

Season 3

1 sequence

The Walking Dead

2010–2022AMCHorror

Rust, decay and abandoned objects, cut to a string figure that never resolves — a sequence about entropy rather than the dead.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon

2023–AMCHorror

The franchise moved to France, with a title sequence built out of religious iconography rather than decay.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Walking Dead: Dead City

2023–AMCHorror

Maggie and Negan in a cut-off Manhattan, in the first of the spin-offs to give its pairing the whole hour.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live

2024AMCHorror

Rick and Michonne given the ending the parent series never got round to.

Season 1

1 sequence

Walking with Dinosaurs

1999BBC OneDocumentary

A natural history series about animals nobody has filmed, shot as though somebody had.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wallander

2005–2016SVT / BBC OneCrime

Henning Mankell's Ystad detective, filmed twice — in Swedish with Krister Henriksson, and in English with Kenneth Branagh.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Waltons

1972–1981CBSDrama

A Virginia mountain homestead in the Depression, introduced with a warmth the decade's other dramas had no interest in.

Season 1

1 sequence

WandaVision

2021Disney+Sci-Fi

A different decade's sitcom opening every week — hand-drawn fifties, animated sixties, video-tape seventies, saccharine eighties, mockumentary two-thousands — each one a faithful pastiche of a real show's titles, and each one a little more wrong than the last.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wander Over Yonder

2013–2016Disney Channel / Disney XDAnimation

Craig McCracken's relentlessly cheerful nomad and the villain he will not stop befriending.

Season 1

1 sequence

War of the Worlds

1988–1990SyndicationSci-Fi

A sequel to the 1953 film in which the aliens were never defeated, only dormant.

Season 1

1 sequence

Warehouse 13

2009–2014SyfySci-Fi

Artefacts on shelves, filmed like a museum inventory that has started moving on its own.

Season 1

1 sequence

Warrior

2019–2023Cinemax / HBO MaxDrama

Ink-brush figures fighting across parchment, for a series built from a Bruce Lee treatment that took fifty years to reach air.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wataha

2014–2019HBO EuropeCrime

Border guards in the Bieszczady mountains, and the first Polish drama HBO made for itself.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Watcher

2022–NetflixHorror

A house filmed from outside, at the distance a neighbour would stand — which is the entire threat.

Season 1

1 sequence

Watchmen

2019HBODrama

Damon Lindelof's sequel to the comic, scored by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and the hardest entry in this catalogue to find footage of.

Season 1

1 sequence

Waterloo Road

2006–BBC OneDrama

A failing comprehensive in Rochdale, and the successor to Grange Hill as British television's school of record.

Season 1

2 sequences

The Wayans Bros.

1995–1999The WBComedy

Two brothers running a Harlem newsstand, made by the family whose name is over the door.

Season 1
Season 3

1 sequence

Wayward Pines

2015–2016FoxSci-Fi

An Idaho town nobody can leave, from the Blake Crouch novels.

Season 1

1 sequence

WCW Monday Nitro

1995–2001TNTDocumentary

The programme that made Monday nights a ratings war, and lost it.

Season 1

1 sequence

We Are Who We Are

2020HBO / Sky AtlanticDrama

Luca Guadagnino's only television series, on an American army base in Veneto, opened in ten seconds.

Season 1

1 sequence

We Bare Bears

2015–2019Cartoon NetworkAnimation

Three bears stacked in a trenchcoat trying to fit into the Bay Area.

Season 1

1 sequence

We Can Be Heroes

2005ABC (Australia)Comedy

Chris Lilley playing all six finalists for Australian of the Year, in his first series.

Season 1

1 sequence

We Own This City

2022HBOCrime

Baltimore again, from the makers of The Wire, but shot as surveillance and body-camera footage rather than drama.

Season 1

1 sequence

We Were Liars

2025–Amazon Prime VideoDrama

A summer on a private island off Massachusetts, and the accident nobody in the family will describe.

Season 1

1 sequence

Weak Hero Class

2022–2025Wavve / NetflixDrama

A top student fighting his way through school violence, from the webtoon.

Season 2

1 sequence

Web Therapy

2011–2015ShowtimeComedy

Lisa Kudrow's improvised therapist, conducting three-minute sessions by video call.

Season 1

1 sequence

Webster

1983–1989ABC / SyndicationComedy

A boy adopted by his late father's team-mate, in the sitcom ABC ran in Diff'rent Strokes' shadow.

Season 1

1 sequence

WeCrashed

2022Apple TV+Drama

Startup iconography inflating and bursting — open-plan glass, beanbags and valuation charts, treated as one continuous bubble.

Season 1

2 sequences

Wednesday

2022–NetflixHorror

Gothic paper-cut animation and a harpsichord, doing in seventy-nine seconds what the Addams Family finger-snap did in eight.

Season 1
Season 2

1 sequence

Weeds

2005–2012ShowtimeComedy

'Little Boxes' over identical suburban houses — and from the third season the song is re-recorded by a different artist every episode, which makes this one of the most varied openings in television.

Season 2

1 sequence

Weird Science

1994–1998USA NetworkComedy

The film turned into a series, with the computer-made woman staying on as a regular.

Season 1

1 sequence

Welcome to the Wayne

2017–2019NickelodeonAnimation

An apartment building with a secret in every corridor, and children who map it.

Season 1

1 sequence

Welcome to Wrexham

2022–FXDocumentary

Two American actors buying a Welsh football club, and a title sequence that treats the town as the subject rather than them.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wentworth

2013–2021SoHo / Fox ShowcaseDrama

An Australian prison drama with a thirty-second opening that gets colder as the series goes on.

Season 8

1 sequence

Werewolf

1987–1988FoxHorror

One of the four series Fox launched its network with, and the first weekly werewolf on American television.

Season 1

2 sequences

The West Wing

1999–2006NBCDrama

Oil portraits, flags and W.G. Snuffy Walden's brass — an opening that treats the executive branch as a cathedral, which is the show's entire register.

Season 1
Season 5

1 sequence

The Westies

2025MGM+Crime

The Hell's Kitchen Irish mob, opened by Digital Kitchen in the grain of 1970s New York.

Season 1

4 sequences

Westworld

2016–2022HBOSci-Fi

Things being manufactured, filmed as though it were tender: a horse and rider printed strand by strand, hands assembled out of white thread, a player piano working the theme out by itself. Rebuilt every season as the show's idea of what is being made changes.

Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
and 1 more

1 sequence

What I Like About You

2002–2006The WBComedy

Two sisters sharing a New York flat, named for the Romantics single it opens on.

Season 1

1 sequence

What If...?

2021–2024Disney+Animation

The Watcher narrating alternative versions of the films, with a sequence that assembles and dismantles itself every week.

Season 1

1 sequence

What We Do in the Shadows

2019–2024FXComedy

Gothic engraving and Norma Tanega's 'You're Dead' — a vampire mockumentary whose titles are the only part of it played completely straight.

Season 1

1 sequence

What's Happening Now!!

1985–1988SyndicationComedy

The seventies sitcom revived with the same cast grown up and running the diner.

Season 1

1 sequence

Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?

1973–1974BBC OneComedy

The sequel to the 1964 series, about two friends who have grown in opposite directions.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Wheel of Time

2021–Prime VideoDrama

A tapestry weaving itself, unpicking, and starting again — the series' cosmology of cycles, stated as a loom.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wheeler Dealers

2003–2023Discovery Real Time / Discovery ChannelDocumentary

One man buys a car badly, the other repairs it, and the profit is announced at the end whether there is any or not.

Season 1

1 sequence

When Calls the Heart

2014–Hallmark ChannelDrama

A city teacher posted to a frontier coal town, and the longest-running scripted series Hallmark has made.

Season 1

1 sequence

Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?

1991–1995PBSDocumentary

A geography quiz whose house band sang the answers, and which taught a generation of children where Ouagadougou is.

Season 1

1 sequence

Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?

1994–1999Fox KidsAnimation

The geography game animated, with Rita Moreno as the thief and a jazz score to chase her with.

Season 1

1 sequence

Where the Heart Is

1997–2006ITVDrama

District nurses in a Yorkshire town, which ran nine years on almost no incident.

Season 1

1 sequence

White Collar

2009–2014USA NetworkCrime

Nine seconds. A fedora, a card, and straight into it.

Season 1

1 sequence

White House Plumbers

2023HBOComedy

Eleven seconds of period government typography, played as though the men behind it were competent.

Season 1

3 sequences

The White Lotus

2021–HBODrama

Colonial wallpaper that will not behave — painted paradise curdling into something predatory while the resort's guests are nowhere in it. Rebuilt from scratch for each new location, with a new theme every time.

Season 1
Season 2
Season 3

1 sequence

The White Princess

2017StarzDrama

The sequel to The White Queen, following Elizabeth of York into the Tudor marriage.

Season 1

1 sequence

The White Queen

2013Starz / BBC OneDrama

Roses, water and heraldry — the Wars of the Roses introduced through the emblems both sides died for.

Season 1

1 sequence

The White Shadow

1978–1981CBSDrama

A white ex-professional coaching basketball at a mostly black Los Angeles high school.

Season 1

1 sequence

Whitechapel

2009–2013ITVCrime

Modern police work in the streets the Ripper murders happened in, with each series restaging an old case.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Whitest Kids U' Know

2007–2011IFCComedy

A New York sketch troupe who filmed their own pilot and sold it, opening on a theme they perform themselves.

Season 1

1 sequence

Who Do You Think You Are?

2004–BBC OneDocumentary

One celebrity's ancestry per episode, opening on photographs that dissolve into each other backwards.

Season 1

1 sequence

Who Killed Sara?

2021–2022NetflixCrime

Photographs, parachute rigging and water — the single incident the whole series circles, restaged in the titles every season.

Seasons 1–3

1 sequence

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

1998–ITVDocumentary

Keith and Matthew Strachan's music, which unusually runs continuously under the questions rather than only over the titles — one of the few game shows scored like a thriller.

Season 1

1 sequence

Who's the Boss?

1984–1992ABCComedy

A theme called 'Brand New Life' over a move from Brooklyn to Connecticut, which is the entire premise sung aloud.

Season 1

1 sequence

Whose Line Is It Anyway?

1998–ABC / The CWComedy

Improv games where the points don't matter, opened by a scramble of the cast in freeze-frame.

Season 1

1 sequence

Why Women Kill

2019–2021CBS All Access / Paramount+Drama

Marc Cherry's anthology, three eras in the same house in the first season.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wife Swap

2003–2009Channel 4Documentary

Two households exchanged for a fortnight, in ten seconds of titles that give away the whole premise.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Wiggles

1998–ABC (Australia)Comedy

Four early-childhood teachers from Sydney who worked out that a children's band could tour like a rock one.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wild 'n Out

2005–MTVComedy

Improvised comedy played as a team sport, and the longest-running programme MTV has.

Season 16

1 sequence

The Wild Thornberrys

1998–2004NickelodeonAnimation

A wildlife-documentary family whose daughter can talk to the animals they are filming.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Wild Wild West

1965–1969CBSDrama

An animated frontier vignette that pauses on four panels of a comic strip — a western opening built like a title card for a serial.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wilfred

2011–2014FX / FXXComedy

A man who sees his neighbour's dog as an Australian in a dog suit, which the series never explains.

Season 1

2 sequences

Will & Grace

1998–2020NBCComedy

Thirteen seconds and a piano vamp, from a sitcom confident enough not to explain itself.

Season 1
Season 9

1 sequence

Willo the Wisp

1981BBC OneAnimation

Kenneth Williams voicing every character, in five-minute films made to fill the gap before the news.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wind Breaker

2024–MBSAnimation

A delinquent school whose students defend the town rather than terrorise it.

Season 2

1 sequence

The Winds of War

1983ABCDrama

Wouk's novel as eighteen hours across a single week, and the most expensive thing American television had made.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wings

1990–1997NBCComedy

A Nantucket airline run by two brothers, opened by Schubert.

Season 1

1 sequence

Winning Time

2022–2023HBODrama

Grainy 16mm, video tape and film stock shuffled together so the show looks like footage of the era rather than a reconstruction of it, over a disco horn line.

Season 1

5 sequences

The Wire

2002–2008HBOCrime

The same song recorded five different ways. Every season re-cuts the images and hands 'Way Down in the Hole' to a new artist, matching the institution that season is about.

Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
and 2 more

1 sequence

Wiseguy

1987–1990CBSCrime

An undercover agent left inside one organisation for a whole arc at a time, which is roughly where American television learned to serialise.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wishbone

1995–1998PBSDrama

A Jack Russell terrier imagining himself into classic literature, one novel per episode.

Season 1

1 sequence

Witchblade

2001–2002TNTSci-Fi

A New York detective bonded to a sentient gauntlet, from the Top Cow comic.

Season 1

3 sequences

The Witcher

2019–NetflixDrama

Monsters, coins and continents cut into a woodblock-print style, with the medallion turning at the centre of it.

Season 1
Season 2
Season 3

1 sequence

Witches of East End

2013–2014LifetimeHorror

A mother who has kept from her two daughters that all three of them are witches.

Season 1

1 sequence

Without a Trace

2002–2009CBSCrime

Missing-person photographs and a clock, in thirty-two seconds that state the format precisely.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wizards Beyond Waverly Place

2024–2026Disney ChannelComedy

Wizards of Waverly Place continued a generation on, with the original lead handing the family over.

Season 1

1 sequence

WKRP in Cincinnati

1978–1982CBSComedy

A radio-station sitcom whose theme was written to sound like a record the station would actually play.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wolfblood

2012–2017CBBCHorror

Teenagers who are not werewolves but something older, in a children's series that took the mythology seriously.

Season 1

1 sequence

A Woman of Substance

1985Channel 4 / SyndicationDrama

Barbara Taylor Bradford's servant girl who builds a department store empire, across three nights.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Wombles

1973–1975BBC OneAnimation

Litter-collecting creatures under Wimbledon Common, whose fictional band had six top-twenty singles in one year.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wonder Woman

1975–1979ABC / CBSSci-Fi

An animated comic-book opening with a disco theme that names the character and tells her what to do, repeatedly.

Season 2

1 sequence

The Wonder Years

1988–1993ABCComedy

Home-movie footage and Joe Cocker singing 'With a Little Help from My Friends' — an opening that establishes the entire retrospective frame before a word of narration.