Lie to Me
A deception expert reading faces frame by frame, built on the research of the psychologist who consulted on it.
Lie to Me opens with a main title sequence of 31 seconds.
At 31 seconds, it opens well under the 47-second median for crime sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on Fox in 2009, when America's Most Wanted, The X-Files and MADtv were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
31sFan upload of the intro.
More crime opening titles from the 2000s
1 sequence
Dexter
Breakfast filmed as though it were a murder. A mosquito swatted, a blood orange crushed, a shaving nick, a steak sliced, floss drawn tight — every shot of an ordinary morning framed exactly as the violence the show never puts on screen this early.
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The Wire
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
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2 sequences
NCIS
Naval insignia, photographs and a snare roll, refreshed periodically as a cast that has now turned over almost completely came and went.
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The Mentalist
A red smiley face drawn in blood, which is the whole of the series' mythology compressed into one image.
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Sons of Anarchy
Leather, chrome and a reaper patch, over a theme re-recorded by a different artist as the club's situation deteriorates.
- Season 1
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1 sequence
Bones
Skeletal reconstruction rendered as clean laboratory graphics — a procedural that opens on anatomy rather than crime.
- Season 2