Horizon - new series

Did anyone else see last night's Horizon ? Last night's one was one of the better ones - mildly entertaining but I did actually manage to learn something from it. It's sad because while Horizon does generally produce quite good films, there are the occasional turkeys (sorry, dinosaurs ) such as a certain face transplant and bird flu episode.

And the current titles are dreadful - boring and without a proper theme tune. The logo's quite nice, and IMO would work well with the previous "teal synapses" titles which were one of the best I've ever seen, very reminiscent of the "aurora" titles which were retired some years back. And the "doo-dee-do-dooo-de-do-de-doo" jingle needs to make a comeback IMO.

Anyway, I need to go and check on the dinosaur in the oven.

Anyone involved in producing Horizon in the past 10 years should be shot for their services to science. Possibly tortured as well if they worked on the Chimps episode last year.

CH4 does better programmes about this subject

I completely agree that the current sequence is dreadful! Tiny logo on the side of the screen? Whatever happened to the towering logo with the slow jingle? Yes, new titles, definately!

Is Equinox still going?


These sort of programmes all depend on the subject matter - though the trend now seems to have been for the generic brands for them to be dropped and replaced with individual eye-catching programme titles such as "The half-ton Dinosaur with six heads" etc.

I agree that the classic theme tune mentioned by the OP needs to really be brought back. As for graphics...



Are you thinking of the particular sequence I remember well? TV Ark had it when the relevant section was up, but as it happens for now, UK Documentary are running episodes from this particular era:
http://www.duke1401.myby.co.uk/horizon-still.jpg

Very dramatic, a nice big bold logo and I loved the music too.

Old Titles

For anyone who knows: From when until when, did these titles run?

Yes, that was good, although I think all the title sequences were good. Wasn't there one with a smaller logo, bright orange, and the jingle played on a piano? Think it was in the early 2000s, before the title sequence that had a female opera singer singing the tune. Anyone remember?

IMO the best version of the theme tune was the one before the present titles were introduced - slow, and perfectly suited to the programme.

The "tower" logo (the last version of the titles to use this logo built the tower out of an aurora) was withdrawn in (I think) 2003 or 2004 to make way for a camera shooting through rings with images of a foetus, a landscape and something else.

That'll be the one with the woman singing it, isn't it?

No, there was a version between that one and the present drums "theme music". It was basically a strong theme using synth pads(?), a few strings maybe and a sort of beepy melody, before a data stream (or something that looks very like the BBC News data stream) hits the horizon in a way that looks suspiciously like the tower titles, and the jingle is played in a high key on the piano. Hopefully when TV Ark get their programmes pages up we can take a look at them... the background was a sort of dark green, suspiciously like BBC2's new corporate colour.

But the one with the woman singing it wasn't bad.

Thanks. I look forward to seeing those titles again, my memories are so faint that it'll be good to see them again.

I totally dissagree, after a few years in the doldrums, Horizon has vastly improved over the past couple of years, now in it's 44th Series, long may it continue.