Still from the new “Severance” title sequence — image credit: Apple
Somewhere around the middle of the 2000s, the television drama title sequence was dead. Just compare Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing” with its 1999 soaring theme and sequence, to the stark title card of Sorkin’s 2006 “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.”
The idea was that a sequence lasting up to 60 seconds is a whole minute’s advertising lost. Hour-long dramas have already shrunk from around 55 minutes to around 45 over the decades, every second possible taken out for an advert, so title sequences were an obvious target.