The Ray Bradbury Theater
1985–1992HBOUSA NetworkSci-Fi
Bradbury adapting himself, introduced each week from an office full of the objects the stories came from.
The Ray Bradbury Theater opens with a main title sequence of 31 seconds.
At 31 seconds, it opens well under the 58-second median for sci-fi sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on HBO in 1985, when The Hitchhiker and Fraggle Rock were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
31sFan upload of the first season's open.
More sci-fi opening titles from the 1980s
3 sequences
Star Trek: The Next Generation
The Enterprise-D passing the camera at warp while Patrick Stewart reads the mission statement. Stately, slow and completely confident — it takes almost a minute and a half before anything happens, and it never once feels the need to hurry.
- Season 1
- Season 2
- Seasons 3–7
2 sequences
Quantum Leap
Narration explaining a premise too complicated to infer, over a theme by Mike Post — the anthology format's problem solved in sixty seconds every week.
- Season 1
- Season 4
1 sequenceWar of the Worlds
A sequel to the 1953 film in which the aliens were never defeated, only dormant.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Twilight Zone (1985)
The first revival, with the Grateful Dead re-recording Marius Constant's motif — the middle of three attempts at the same idea, all of which are now in this catalogue.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAlien Nation
The film continued as a series, with a buddy-cop format used to work through immigration and prejudice week by week.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAmazing Stories
John Williams scoring an animated history of storytelling — cave paintings to campfires to television — for Spielberg's anthology.
- Season 1