Merlin
Camelot rendered in gold and firelight, with a narration establishing a prophecy in about the time it takes to say one.
Merlin opens with a main title sequence of 31 seconds.
At 31 seconds, it opens well under the 50-second median for drama sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on BBC One in 2008, when A Question of Sport, Last of the Summer Wine and Postman Pat were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
31sThe first series' titles.
More drama opening titles from the 2000s
1 sequence
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Twenty seconds of chemistry-set smoke and floating element symbols. Almost aggressively short, which leaves the cold open to do the work.
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Grey's Anatomy
Twenty-six seconds of surgical instruments and a guitar figure, from a series that has now outlived most of the shows that copied it.
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Mad Men
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Gilmore Girls
Carole King's 'Where You Lead' rewritten as a mother-and-daughter duet, over a small Connecticut town in every season at once.
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2 sequences
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Anatomical illustration and MRI imagery over Massive Attack's 'Teardrop' — a diagnostic show that opens by looking inside a body rather than at one.
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Art history restaged as domestic comedy — Cranach's Eve, Egyptian tomb painting, American Gothic — each one collapsing under a woman's exasperation.
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