The Vampire Diaries
A short title card: the name in gold serif lettering rising over a fogbound road at night, then alone on black.
The Vampire Diaries opens with a main title sequence of 9 seconds.
At 9 seconds, it opens well under the 50-second median for horror sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on The CW in 2009, when America's Next Top Model, Supernatural and Veronica Mars were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
9sNine seconds: a car on a foggy night road, the name coming up in gold over it, then the name alone.
More horror opening titles from the 2000s
1 sequence
Supernatural
Fifteen years without an opening title sequence, and fifteen distinct title cards instead — a few seconds of the show's name, restyled from scratch every season to match what that year was about. The shortest main titles on this site, and the ones that changed the most.
- Seasons 1–15
1 sequence
True Blood
Digital Kitchen again, and their nastiest work: swamp water, roadkill, a revival tent, a child in a Klan hood, all cut to Jace Everett's 'Bad Things'. It promises a show about the South rather than a show about vampires.
- Seasons 1–7
1 sequenceGhost Whisperer
Jennifer Love Hewitt talking to the dead in a small Maryland town.
- Season 1
1 sequenceParanoia Agent
Satoshi Kon's only television series, opened by the entire cast laughing in front of disasters.
- Season 1
1 sequenceCarnivàle
Tarot cards dissolving into Depression-era photographs and newsreel, so the reading and the history become the same footage. Another Emmy winner, and still one of the strangest things a network put in front of a drama.
- Seasons 1–2
1 sequenceBeing Human
A vampire, a werewolf and a ghost sharing a Bristol rental, introduced with the flatness of a house-share advert.
- Season 1