The Thorn Birds

Name: The Thorn Birds
Genre: Drama

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The second most-watched miniseries in American television history, after Roots.

The Thorn Birds opens with a main title sequence of 117 seconds.

At 117 seconds, it opens well above the 50-second median for drama sequences in this catalogue.

It arrived on ABC in 1983, when One Life to Live, All My Children and The Bugs Bunny Show were also on the network.

1 sequenceIMDb ↗

The opening titles

117s

Fan upload. Nearly two minutes — the miniseries convention of running the full cast over the theme before anything happens.

1985–BBC OneDrama

An aerial pull-back over the Thames and the drum that answers it — thirty-two seconds that have barely changed in forty years.

1989–2001NBC / SyndicationDrama

Los Angeles County lifeguards, and at its peak the most-watched television programme on Earth.

1989CBSDrama

Basil Poledouris scoring a cattle drive from Texas to Montana — the miniseries that proved the western was not finished after all.

1985–2025Seven / Ten (Australia)Drama

Ramsay Street across forty years, and a theme song that survived every cast, network and cancellation.

1987–CBSDrama

Los Angeles fashion houses, and the most widely watched daytime serial in the world.

1982–1986NBCDrama

A narrated premise, a scanning red light and a synth arpeggio — the most efficient piece of eighties television branding after the A-Team's.