The ‘cold opening’ is a storytelling technique which has featured in virtually every New Who episode. It’s a pre-titles scene which gives a taste of what’s to come in the story ahead. In this article, we look back at some of the all-time best Doctor Who intros…
Before the Flood
This Series 9 episode features one of the strangest Doctor Who intros of all time in that it breaks the fourth wall – that is, the Doctor addresses the audience directly and delivers a piece to camera, in this instance describing the famous Bootstrap Paradox whilst strumming on his electric guitar. This scene then dissolves into the main Doctor Who title sequence which, for no particular reason, includes a rock version of the famous theme, played by Peter Capaldi himself. And it’s awesome.
This is perhaps the most random of all the Doctor Who intros, and one of the most fun. There’s no real justification for the Doctor playing his electric guitar, or for the rock version of the theme. And it’s hard to find a canonical explanation as to why the Doctor breaks the fourth wall and chats to the camera. At the same time, the Doctor’s explanation of the Bootstrap Paradox is fitting for the series, and indeed for ‘Before the Flood.’
Put simply, the Bootstrap Paradox is the idea that someone (say, a Beethoven fan) might travel back in time to meet Beethoven himself, only to find that the famous composer doesn’t exist. So that individual would then write all of Beethoven’s music in order to preserve history. But this would create a paradox because it doesn’t explain how the time traveller got the idea for Beethoven’s music in the first place.
You keeping up?
Bad Wolf
The next of our Doctor Who intros comes from 2005 and the episode ‘Bad Wolf’ – the first of a two-part series finale featuring the Ninth Doctor and the Daleks. But in this particular cold opening, the unthinkable happens: the Ninth Doctor discovers that he has been teleported into the Big Brother house.
Big Brother, for those of you who don’t know, is a reality gameshow in which a dozen-or-so strangers are thrown together in a secluded house and forced to complete tasks whilst obeying every instruction from the faceless Big Brother, who issues orders through the house’s loudspeaker system. To have the Ninth Doctor plunged into this situation was hilarious and random, and particularly pertinent at a time when Big Brother was at the peak of its popularity.
The Big Bang
Nobody writes Doctor Who intros quite like Steven Moffat – a scribe known for his ‘wibbly wobbly, timey wimey’ goodness, and yarns which are more complex than a 10-sided Rubik’s Cube. ‘The Big Bang’ is an especially complicated episode, made even more confusing by its cold opening in which it is revealed that the Time Lord’s companion Amy Pond has been sealed inside a box-like prison known as the Pandorica.
But why is this so confusing? Well, in the previous episode, it was the Doctor himself who was sealed inside this prison by an army of his deadliest enemies, presumably for the rest of time. His TARDIS then exploded, apparently taking the entire universe with it. Which is quite a cliffhanger.
So the next episode had quite a lot of explaining to do, but in true Moffat style, the cold opening actually raised more questions than it answered. Planet Earth had somehow survived the destruction of the universe, and things like stars and other planets were just distant memories and myths. And then there was Amy Pond, sealed inside the Pandorica, with no sign of the Doctor.
So is this the most confusing of all the Doctor Who intros? Possibly, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing; it sows the seeds of curiosity in the viewer’s mind, and pays off in spades. Just keep watching.
Time and the Rani
Cold openings aren’t the preserve of new Doctor Who. There are a small number of Doctor Who intros from the classic series – four, if we remember rightly: ‘Castrovalva,’ ‘The Five Doctors,’ ‘Remembrance of the Daleks‘ and then this one, ‘Time and the Rani.’
Admittedly, the next of our Doctor Who intros was penned out of necessity rather than dramatic effect, but it works extremely well. Basically, Season 24 had to introduce a brand new Doctor, as Colin Baker had left the show without filming a regeneration scene. So the cold opening to ‘Time and the Rani’ had to depict the Sixth Doctor’s death, his transformation into the Seventh, his arrival on the planet Lakertya, and reintroduce the Rani – all in about 60 seconds.
Surprisingly, the sequence works well, and has gone down in Doctor Who history for its inclusion of the famous line, “Leave the girl, it’s the man I want!” Certainly, the scene has a lot of hoops to jump through (one of which being the teasing of the ‘Time and the Rani’s main monster, the Tetraps) but it all makes sense – even if the Sixth Doctor’s death is never really explained.
Moreover, this was the first scene in Doctor Who history to feature computer generated imagery, showing the TARDIS being attacked by the Rani’s interceptor beam. It was also the first to feature the Seventh Doctor played by Sylvester McCoy.
The Name of the Doctor
The last of our Doctor Who intros is another one from the brain of Steven Moffat. The cold opening from ‘The Name of the Doctor’ concluded Doctor Who Series Seven, and came at the start of the series’ 50th anniversary celebrations. And what a celebration it was.
It wasn’t quite as timey-wimey as some of the other Doctor Who intros on this list, but it certainly raised questions. In the scene, viewers finally got to see the moment where the First Doctor stole his TARDIS from Gallifrey, with his granddaughter Susan in tow. This moment had been talked about since it was first mentioned in ‘The War Games‘ in 1969, so it was exciting to finally see it depicted. And in order to make it as realistic as possible, the production team incorporated footage of William Hartnell from the classic story ‘The Aztecs,’ which they colourised and blended into the Gallifreyan backdrop, along with repurposed First Doctor dialogue.
And as if that weren’t enough, the cold opening then showed all of the other classic Doctors, with the Time Lord’s companion Clara inexplicably encountering every single one of them. But how was this possible?
Few Doctor Who intros have raised so many questions, and provided so much nostalgia. It was the perfect way to ring in the 50th anniversary year.
But over to you, internet. Which is your favourite of the Doctor Who intros? And which ones would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments below.
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