Every Doctor Who Title Sequence Ranked Worst To Best (2025)

The one that started it all. 

Doctor Who was a revolutionary concept for the BBC back in the 1960s. Nothing like this had ever been done before and, so, it was the perfect production to push boundaries and explore the possibilities of science fiction. 

This was certainly true of Bernard Lodge's original title sequence which explored techniques that, although simple by today's standards, were groundbreaking and "otherworldly" for the time. The pulsating waves were created by using a technique called the "howlround effect" which was achieved by pointing the camera at its own feedback on a monitor. Simple, but extremely effective. 

Delia Derbyshire's original arrangement of the famous theme was also revolutionary for the time. Rather than using traditional instruments to create the theme, Derbyshire recorded countless electrical sounds, adjusted their pitch and spliced them together to form a piece of music. In an age before synthesisers and computers could be used to create music, this was a painstaking task and an absolute triumph for Derbyshire. If only she'd known then how famous her work would be over 60 years later! 

The idea of having the image of the Doctor appear in the sequence was explored for this first version but was ultimately deemed "too scary" by producer Verity Lambert. Of course, it wouldn't be long before that idea was revisited but it's crazy to think that a simple image of a man's face would be considered "too scary". How times have changed. 

Though it may be simple in comparison to those that followed, it cannot be understated how groundbreaking this sequence was for television at the time. So vital, in fact, that when it came time to celebrate Doctor Who's 50th anniversary, this was the sequence chosen to open The Day of the Doctor.