Title Tattle

One of my favourite programmes at the moment is "Hustle". As well as being really rather cool and enjoyable to watch, it has a superb title sequence. This is, I think, a rather neglected art form. Its all too easy to stick up a few clips from the show, edit some shots of the actors in action together, bang some music over the top and Bob's your Uncle. 

"Hustle" has a rather lovely title sequence that does exactly what a set of titles should do; give you some idea of what the show is about. Its beautifully animated in the style everyone imagines the old ITC series' of the 60s and 70s were like. There's lots of retro styling; its all browns and greens and stripes and yet it really gives you a good idea about what you are about to watch. Dice roll, men are turned into puppets and there's a hint of glamour and cool and in 30 or so seconds you know the premise of the show... as the logo comes up, made of floating money, you know its all about making money from other people. Fantastic!

I'm a big fan of title sequences. I think its what comes of being a Doctor Who fan. We're very lucky to have so many different and yet at the same time iconic and cool sets of titles. I'm certain it had a lot to do with the success of the show. For most of its run, the show had title sequences that were quite unlike everything else on TV. Its important to stand out from the rest of the crowd and Doctor Who certainly did that.

Two series I always thought had tremendous sets of titles were Terry Nation shows in the 70s, "Survivors" and "Blake's 7". They may look a little creaky now, but they do a great job. "Survivors" begins with a scientist at work in a lab. He drops a flask of something, and at that moment the series logo comes up on screen. It the cuts to him travelling to an airport and collapsing dead. The stamps of various countries come up on the screen, ending with London... and the screen slowly turns orange, like an infection is spreading across it.

This set of titles brilliantly set up the series. It serves a narrative function. It tells you what has happened before the series is going to be about before its even really begun. This saves Terry having to explain how the plague began and how it was spread in a long drawn out piece of exposition. If you add in a chilling theme, it becomes a rather unsettling 30 second or so sequence.

The original Blake's 7 titles serve a similar function. There's a big dome full of lights at night, so we must be in the future, camera's twitching, a man being tortured, armoured storm trooper style guards and the man being tortured must be eliminated! Then a rush of (cheap looking!) planets and a big ship rushes past and the music crashes in triumph as the series logo appears before coming to a quieter end as it fades back into the Federation logo, as if they may not win after all.

From all this you can get some idea of what sort of show you're about to see. The "Big Brother" style state is introduced to us in a series of images that we can understand and piece together and you have some idea that this Blake, the man being tortured is some kind of enemy of this state. It might look cheap and be executed less than perfectly, but its head and shoulders thematically over the other two Blake's 7 titles sequences. The second set of titles is ok. It features the Liberator being chased by Federation Pursuit Ships around the universe which does again give you some idea of the themes of the third series (although there is far less Federation based stories in this season ironically!). The Fourth season though, although being the best executes set of titles the show had, serve no thematic purpose at all. They're just space travel titles. There's nothing of the style the first ones had. You learn nothing of the show except that its in space and the new logo is just a nice way of writing Blake's 7... no counterpoint of the heroes names against the Federation logo. Ah well, maybe I just read too much into these things!

With a little effort, all shows could have great sets of titles. As much as I love Buffy and Angel, their titles don't really do anything special do they? Just imagine what they'd be like if they dealt with their shows thematic origins rather than pasting together a few clips. I just hope that Russell T. Davies understand how important the title sequence is and gives us another iconic set of Doctor Who titles.