Sunset Beach
Aaron Spelling's daytime serial, which NBC ran for three years and then replaced with Passions.
Sunset Beach opens with a main title sequence of 73 seconds.
At 73 seconds, it opens well above the 50-second median for drama sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on NBC in 1997, when Another World, Columbo and Mad About You were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
73sThe first titles, cast portraits tumbling over a sepia pier.
More drama opening titles from the 1990s
1 sequence
The Sopranos
Ninety seconds of a man driving home from the Lincoln Tunnel to North Caldwell. No cast montage, no highlights — just the commute, which turns out to be the whole show.
- Seasons 1–6
2 sequences
Twin Peaks
A bird, a sawmill blade and a waterfall, over Angelo Badalamenti at a tempo no network would approve today — ninety seconds of a town being described before anyone in it speaks.
- Seasons 1–2
- Season 3
2 sequences
ER
James Newton Howard's theme over sliding doors, gurneys and light — the template every medical drama since has either copied or deliberately avoided.
- Season 1
- Season 10
1 sequence
Dawson's Creek
Paula Cole over a Massachusetts creek — a theme so tied to the show that its absence from the streaming release became a story in itself.
- Season 1
2 sequences
The West Wing
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 sequenceBeverly Hills, 90210
Freeze-frames of a cast grinning at the camera over a synth-brass hook — the template every teen drama of the decade copied.
- Season 1