Making a Start

In a comment to the previous post I mentioned that many new television dramas have a propensity for taking the “kick, bollock, scramble” approach to throw their audience straight into the story. Obviously this desire to grab people’s attention is a good way to keep them from reaching for the remote and checking out their competition as much as it is to get the plot rolling, but sometimes I miss the intrigue that comes with a slow, calculated build–up.

Probably my favourite opening scene has to be these two minutes leading up to the wonderfully simple and effective title sequence designed by Douglas Burd. It may be out of fashion, and I’m sure viewers with a practically non-existent attention span would blow a plug before the first thirty seconds are up, but it works a treat for me in establishing the working relationships between the quartet of Merlin case officers at The Circus.