Which TV series intros do you not skip by choice?

anarchyrabbit@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 235 points –

For me it was GoT, I just thought the miniature landscapes looked way too cool. Also I am watching Kimmy Unbreakable which has a theme song that I think is pretty catchy.

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Iirc the GoT intros gave you a hint about the episode by highlighting the map areas that the episode was going to cover. But S8 ended up being so bad that it went back in time and ruined the entire series for me, so I never rewatched it and might be misremembering.

Right now I never skip the intro for What We Do in the Shadows. It’s the same every time, but the song is just too much fun to skip. I am probably on my fourth watching of that series.

I think I also sit through most of the Star Trek intros just because I enjoy the visuals.

WWDIIS has at least 2 episodes that play variants on the theme song!

If you happen to remember which episodes, please let me know! I haven’t noticed that on any of my pass throughs.

My mind was blown while re-watching The Wire (where I also never skipped the intro). I said to myself “The singers change but the song remains the same.” Then my brain blew up because that’s the entire point of the series.

I liked the First Season opening for DBZ but only for like the first 50 or so episodes then it changed

House

Massive Attack - Teardrop

We got ripped off in the UK with some teardrop-like library music

They've since lost the rights to Teardrop so all the newer copies have that crappy theme. I had to do a lot of digging to find a version of the series with Teardrop.

Yeah currently binging it on Netflix. Library intro.

Boooo. Getting to listen to the theme is a big part of the show for me lol. I sacrificed a lot of quality just to have the theme. Pretty sure the version on my Plex is only 480p.

I listened to House MD on crappy "watchtvforfree.net" type websites over a decade ago, and I only just realized now that the theme wasn't supposed to change every episode. I just checked YouTube for the intro and I'm super familiar with all three versions haha

I like them all in their own way, but Teardrop obviously stands out.

Westworld

Same. I thought it was a pretty underwhelming show after the first season but that theme song and seeing the printing/construction process never got old.

The Expanse

Obligatory 'came for The Expanse'. And Peaky Blinders is in a comment just about this one and agreed.. And Community cuz I like the song and the series.

Cowboy Bebop and Bluey.

Lol, I came here to say Bluey as well.

I just love their little dances and the song. Plus, I want to teach my daughter patience, and not skipping TV show intros is one of those little things that can help with that.

And there's the one episode where they switch Bingo's and Bluey's positions in the song and it's completely unexpected and amazing. Bluey is GOAT! I really can't think of a better kids' show.

I loved that one.

I aspire to be as good a father as Bandit.

I aspire to be as good a father as Bandit.

Yep. They made him an amazing father and role model without coming off as sanctimonious at all.

Futurama

Mythbusters

King of the Hill

Metalocalypse

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

Dexter was great, set a good vibe that matched the shows tone.

Game of thrones was just really well done with good music.

Buffy. Great high energy start, especially after the explanation intro. Goes straight to action

Lost, its short but it was atmospheric, cryptic and the reason it's short is they wanted to use the time for more story, as the ad levels had increased tv wide so on broadcast tv it was a nice non monetary move from that show specifically.

Firefly. Not enough episodes to get sick of it.

Friends, but only a few times no skip, if its binged.

Battlestar Galactica. Gives a few hints of what's to come in the episode, without being spoilers.

Bluey is fun, kids love it and dance to it.

Thundercats, duck tales, gummi bears, chip n dale. They make me nostalgic for childhood, when you couldn't skip.

Edit:typos

Came in to say Dexter. Not sure why but it's very satisfying.

I think it's that you create it in your mind. Similar to how a book is always better than a movie. When they allied to stabbing with the key or stabbing with the ketchup, you are creating the real opening in your head.

It's also a little bit tongue in cheek, which matches the dark show set in sunny Miami, with a nice guy serial killer.

True. The way he glances toward the camera at the end is very tongue in cheek and means it starts the episode with a reminder of our complicity/alignment with him.

House M.D. (2004)

Daredevil (2015)

The Expanse (2015)

Seconding The Expanse. pensive Norwegian vocalization intensifies

Man, the first shot of houses face through that brain scan always tickles my brain. Love how short the intro is too.

Westworld .

And top gear (the proper Clarkson/Hammond/May one, not that other thing)

House. The original intro with Tear Drop is a banger.

And the funny thing is that that intro is not that good, very generic, but the music is awesome and make the shots way better than they are.

The royalty free version just doesn't hit right. Massive attack carrying hard on the original.

Malcolm in the Middle. Haven’t seen it in years, but I never skipped the theme song.

Better Call Saul

Short, sweet, and generally relevant to the episode in an almost easter-eggish way.

Isn't BCS just one of like four rotating clips? How are they relevant to the episode?

Huh... You have me questioning my sanity now.

Apparently they were the same imagery during the first seasons but in the last season they changed by episode. I have a few vivid recollections of seeing a motif from the intro show up in a key shot from the episode, but that must have all come from the last season.

I really liked the way that was done in Ozark. Each episode would show the letter O, and then inside the O it would show 4 pictures of things that would happen in the episode. And the pictures were vaguely shaped like the letters ZARK.

The Wire

Gotta keep the devil in his hole

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked…

  • Twilight Zone (1959–1964)

  • Firefly

  • Venture Bros.

  • Neon Genesis Evangelion

  • Maria Holic / Maria Holic: Alive

Trailer park boys. The only peaceful moment in any episode is the opening.

The reggae version by Friendliness and the Human Rights is fantastic. That was my alarm clock for a while.

So true. I used to play a YouTube loop of this every now and then.

They nailed the "crazy shit right before the mild intro creating humorous juxtaposition" gag years before Sunny did it.

The Office because it makes me happy to hear it.

I'm on maybe my 475th binge so I'm pretty quick to skip so I don't drive my partner completely insane..

Dark

It is mind bending and believe changes with each episode

Hannibal the series had an amazing intro.

Basically any HBO show, they are always pretty iconic. Special shoutout to The Wire

True Detective S1 & S4

All the seasons had great intros and songs. Season 1 is another level, though.

The season 1 intro is so god damn pitch perfect I think it makes what is an incredible season of television seem like crap by comparison.

Hyperboly obviously, the show's amazing

Slow Horses

Westworld

Tuca and Bertie

Good Omens

The Love Boat

M.A.S.H

Community

Dexter

Ozark: for the cryptic panel of images foreshadowing the episode.

Rockford Files: for the answering machine recordings.

I used to always try to memorize the images so I could tell when they came up in the episode but I found it just distracted me from the show.

Too many to list: Buffy, Brooklyn 99, Firefly, Stargate SG1...

I watch almost all intros. The only exception would be if I'm watching multiple episodes back to back and I know there are no variations in the intro.

The intro usually sets the tone for the show, so I like to watch them.

So I didn't end up watching the whole show, but Neil Patrick Harris completely kills it with his theme song for A Series of Unfortunate Events.

I don't skip intros. It sets the tone for what is about to come.

This thread needs more Stargate, those intros are basically a montage of the most epic scenes from previous seasons

partly nostalgia but really, it's just great; the Simpsons intro. Also the original Roswell from 2000's had a great intro song, it's the only Dido song I like besides the Eminem sample.

Peacemaker!

Peacemaker

This was unlike any credit sequence I had seen before. And it fit in beautifully with the bizarre style of the show.

I always wait for kirk to say "Space" before skipping the intro to Star Trek, always gets a chortle from my partner and I.

i usually only watch the first episode intro, and then the finale intro, except for cases where the intro is a banger like:

bojack horseman

breaking bad

too old to die young

Knight Rider

MacGuyver

A-Team

"In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit...”

Farscape - just love the music.
Babylon 5 season 3. Same reason. Why did they use this music only in the intro of season 3 is beyond me. (Although they used it in outro in season 4). The rest of the seasons they have very cheesy music in the intro.

I loved the Raised By Wolves intro, the music was beautiful. The show was very love it or hate it and has sadly been cancelled :(

Also loved the creepy? music on the Severance intro.

Raised by Wolves had great music.

Another one like that was Vikings.

Something very haunting about that Raised by Wolves intro. Very striking.

And mysterious but it gets more and more meaningful over time.

Battlestar Galactica, Haven, Fringe, Orphan Black,

and there are a few more I don't skip more often than I do, like DS9, Stargate: Atlantis, Rome and the Tudors.

Some series just have really nice intros!

Futurama

Doctor who (tenth seasons specifically)

Orange is the New Black I sang along every time.

I used to not skip POI(Person Of interest), every intro had characters from the episode.

Can't believe no one mentioned Mad Men yet!

The Sopranos

Amazing opening theme and it does such a great job building a sense of place. Even during the show's most dramatic arcs, it does a great job of reminding us that the show is fundamentally about a very normal, relatable man with very normal and relatable concerns.

I adore The Sopranos.

I don’t think I saw it, but Community and Arrested Development.

100% agree with both, although it's kinda cheating to pick ones where they hide easter eggs in the intro

Bluey Bob's Burgers Steven Universe The Owl House Big bang theory

Bob's Burgers was my answer, too. Doesn't overstay its welcome. Catchy jingle. New gags every intro. Boom, it's over.

I'm going to cheat and say Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987 series)

All of them. I don't skip intros and I've never understood why anyone does.

I imagine it started back when you could record TV onto VHS, you could FF through all of the intros, but since the "binging" era of netflix, all streaming services want you back in the action right away so they give you the option to skip. People get addicted to binging shows and they don't want anything to delay their mild dopamine hit. I don't get it either.

  • Jeeves and Wooster.
  • Narcos
  • Westworld
  • Good Omens
  • Twin Peaks
  • Flowers
  • Sherlock
  • Peaky Blinders (I'm sorry)
  • Medici
  • Vikings
  • Disenchantment
  • Kingdom (the stephen fry show)

I cannot believe there's so many. And I'm sure I've missed a few. Damn

Most if not all shows. The intro was made by passionate musicians, animators, editors, and other creative people who work on my favorite shows. It's part of the presentation and the vibe of the program. It's like skipping the opening scene. But to answer your question more directly, I watch every single last second of any Trek intro.

For me its Amazons Wheel of Time series. Seeing the threads get woven into the images of the world and then all coming together to be spun by the great wheel gets me emotional. They could bomb the remaining seasons and I would still be grateful for the opening.

Moonlighting

Muppet Show

Hill Street Blues

First time around there was no option to skip them. Perhaps that's a contributing factor to why they're so good and re-watchable.

Prime's Jack Ryan. It's hypnotic. Somebody put in a lot of work.

The Wire. The opening themes are pretty great (with the exception of Season 5) and for some intangible reason the intro always feels like a core part of setting me up emotionally for the episode. Especially with Season 4. The ominous and dark rendition from the Baltimore school kids feels like an essential mood setting piece for a very sobering season.

Agreed about The Wire, but not about S5, I love that one too :-)

Watching through S5 for the first time right now and it's growing on me. I think I'm not keen on the vocalist? S2's theme was my favourite, which I believe is the original version of the song? Also I freaking love season 2. Genuinely think it's my favourite of the four I've watched.

Yeah S2 version is Tom Waits. Everyone made it their own though.

S3 for me.

Yeah, I absolutely love Season 2 as well. I think the first will always be my favourite, but there's so much goodness to choose from!

Re the singer for S5, that's Steve Earle who is also in the show as Waylon, Bubbles' sponsor at NA :-)

Right, so, you won't believe me but I totally thought the vocalist could be Waylon but then I just figured that they'd gone for someone local to sing it and it was a bit sheltered of me to assume that Waylon's actor was the only one with that accent 😅

Thanks for confirming.

Ah yes good point. I love the variations of the song and the images would slowly change during each season.

Also, not skipping it was the best way to catch the coda/saying at the beginning.

Those epigraphs are so brilliant. I'm always on tenterhooks waiting for the line to come up in the episode.

Me too. And it always gives another layer of significance.

Damn that was some good writing.

Grimm. In the first few seasons they had very very short intros with little hints of what the story would be in it.

For me, Justified.

A lot of people dislike that song, but I love it. It's a nice 'new south' sound.

I like the music for the vibe but not the vocals which are pretty pedestrian.

I didn't see anyone else mention this: Mob Psycho 100. Every one of those intros are bangers.

Franklin. Whenever I watch that guilty pleasure cartoon, I will absolutely refuse to skip the intro no matter how many episodes I'm watching.

Adventure time, the song is a banger and the whole thing lasts like 15 seconds.

  • Sons of Anarchy
  • Bosch/Bosch:Legacy
  • Alias

The rest I was going to suggest have been mentioned already!

Thanks to those beautiful souls actually linking the intros in this thread so we can watch them lol

Inside Job. The original song the intro samples isn't that great. But the intro to the show has an amazing beat that I wish went on for longer then it does.

All of them. Why would I skip an intro? Intros are cool, and, rarely, they might change, possibly for in-show reasons. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is famous for doing this, and even some American shows have taken after it in that regard.

Oh, I never skip intros. I also don't usually watch multiple episodes in a row though, so maybe that's why.

Braindead, a new song by Jonathan Coulton every week

I don't skip any of them. They're so short nowadays, anyway. If I'm impatient enough to skip the opening, then I'm probably not that into it and shouldn't be watching the show anyway.

Anyway, Law & Order, lol

I wasn't the hugest fan of the overall show--it was fine--but I enjoyed how they mixed up the intro song for The Leftovers. I oftened listened through the credits as a result.

The intro from the 80's Saturday morning cartoon M.A.S.K. That song was epic.

Human Target until they messed up the intro (and everything else) with the disastrous season 2.

The music and art were top-tier and set me up for adventure.

For those who haven't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_xFMyhBYx8.

I think this might be the first time I've seen Human Target mentioned online. Loved that show

I skip all the intros after watching them once. Knocking 2min off an episode really adds up.

Deep Space 9 from season 4 onwards. I found it pretty boring and lifeless in the earlier seasons. The ships at and around the station made it a lot more interesting, and i like the updated music

Star Trek

American Horror Story

Although I don't usually skip intros unless I'm in a serious binge mood or short on time.

most of the demon slayer ones, Kizuna no Kiseki is by far my favourite opening song at the moment.

Daredevil (the design and music is sick) and The Morning Show (the animation is very captivating to me)

It's an anime, and nearly cheating but for me it was Mushoku Tensei Season 1

There was an intro song, but while it was playing there would be B Rolls of whatever part of the setting was pertinent for the episode.

It was awesome, but then they did a normal intro for Season 2, which struck me as a bad decision.

Tokyo Vice has a pretty cool opening with moving Yakuza tattoos.

For Kimmy Schmidt, you definitely need to skip the intro on the finale movie.

John from Cincinnati grew on me and then I had to watch it. That song feels so much like 2pm on a Saturday in a beach town in Southern California

Lately OMitB, before I'd say TBBT, from the old times you won't skip on the A-Team opening theme or the Italian version of Hazzard

Firefly. The music is unlike anything I've heard before. I bought the soundtrack based on that one piece of music, but everything else on it is disappointingly normal.

The expanse. The music paired either the visuals is :chefkiss:

Many of my favorites are listed here but one I didn't see is Money Heist.