Stingray
"Stand by for action!" — the first British series filmed entirely in colour, and it opens by saying so.
Stingray opens with a main title sequence of 81 seconds.
At 81 seconds, it opens well above the 58-second median for sci-fi sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on ITV in 1964, when The Sooty Show, Ivor the Engine and Danger Man were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
81sPosted by the official Gerry Anderson channel.
More sci-fi opening titles from the 1960s
10 sequences
Doctor Who
Rebuilt for almost every Doctor, and each rebuild invented its own technique — a camera filming its own monitor, light photographed through moving slots, and finally the first computer-generated titles on British television.
- Seasons 1–3
- Seasons 4–6
- Seasons 7–10
- and 7 more
2 sequences
Star Trek
The one that set the shape of every space-opera opening since: a ship crossing the frame, a captain narrating a mission statement, and a melody built to be hummed. Alexander Courage wrote it as a fanfare and a lounge tune at the same time.
- Season 1
- Seasons 2–3
1 sequenceThe Prisoner
Thunder, a Lotus Seven driven hard past Parliament, a resignation letter slammed onto a desk, and then gas under the door of a man's own flat. Two minutes that explain the entire premise without a narrator, and end with the only line the show ever needed: I am not a number.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThunderbirds
Five, four, three, two, one — the countdown, the launch bays, and Barry Gray's march. Probably the most quoted title sequence Britain has produced.
- Season 1
1 sequenceLost in Space
John Williams, decades before anyone was calling him that, writing a fanfare for a family stranded in a jelly-mould spaceship.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Outer Limits
The control-voice narration that takes over your television set — a premise so effective that the sequence is better remembered than most of the episodes.
- Season 1