Fewer Names, More Show!

I was so excited for today's House Of Cards, dear reader, that I did something I never do: I stayed up until midnight. On a weekday! Then I stayed up past midnight to watch it. I felt like Courtney Love! And as happy as I was not only that the show was back but that my esteemed colleague Dave and I now have something to watch while all our other shows are on winter Olympics hiatus, it was not quite a perfect viewing experience.

I am not a crackpot. I just think that Netflix's original series need to slim down their opening-credits sequences.

This is not a directive that has been required for most shows -- network and otherwise -- for a while. The increasingly common DVR has meant that series have maximized the meat in each episode, so that not only has the theme song running over a montage of representative clips has been replaced by a sound cue and title card (like Lost or Scandal), and/or that the closing credits whiz by in the lower third while the episode ends (like Switched At Birth and virtually all sitcoms). The opening credits used to be an efficient place for the show to explain what it was in its theme song (The Brady Bunch, Clone High) and give you a general idea of its characters and setting -- and, once you were familiar with the show's content, a natural break point for you to pee or get more snacks. But in an era where random discovery of a series is practically unheard-of and you can pause even live TV to go switch the laundry whenever you want, a full opening credits sequence feels like an old-fashioned indulgence.

When it comes to a show that will only ever stream online, an elaborate credits sequence is even less necessary or welcome. The chances of stumbling onto a show you know absolutely nothing about is a lot harder to do on Netflix than when you're flipping through channels on old-style TV. But even if it were, it's not like the opening House Of Cards credits really serve the practical purpose of bringing you up to speed on what the show is about, other than to make sure you know it's set in Washington, DC -- a message it sends over the course of its one minute and thirty-three-seconds. Orange Is The New Black is no more descriptive and, at 01:12.63, only marginally shorter. In both cases, the credits are juuuuuust long enough for you to ask yourself whether it's worth fast-forwarding them if you'll (a) get spoiled for the first few seconds of the actual episode when you inevitably overshoot the end of the credits, and (b) end up spending more time rewinding than you saved by fast-forwarding.

Netflix's whole business model is to drop an entire season of episodes on you at once so that you can, if you choose, gorge on them and be the first of your friends to know how things end. (This will be Dave and me when we inevitably abandon all self-control and watch twelve episodes of House Of Cards tomorrow, only to curse ourselves for our short-sightedness from Sunday until next year.) So if a considerable number of us are probably going to watch more than one episode at a time, do the credits really need to be replayed in each one, over and over again? Look, I'm reasonable: if you want to make your composer happy and run a full credits sequence in each season's premiere, fine. But after that the cold open should end with a smash cut to a title card and then get right into the episode with the main credits cast and producers running over the first few minutes of the episode.

We're trying to race through your show, Netflix! This isn't a school zone, so we don't need your speed bumps. I am not a crackpot.