One of the biggest "controversies" that accompanied the premiere of the new series of Doctor Who was not that Matt Smith was too young to play the Doctor, or that Karen Gillen's kiss-a-gram outfit was too sexy for the TARDIS.

Instead, they were incensed that the BBC had retooled the opening credits sequence.

Yes, the die-hard Whovians were all abuzz online, moaning about how "the font is too bulky" and the "music is awfuuulllllll" (direct quote, actual spelling).

They complained in the way only Who fans - who have some of the most inflated senses of fannish entitlement in the entire sci-fi universe - know how: "Terrible regression from the theatrical quality openings in the past few years. What were they thinking?"

You'd think they got Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. to rejig it, such was the online uproar.

It got so deafening that when I finally sat down to watch The Eleventh Hour, I was expecting to want to set fire to my computer once the opening titles rolled.

Instead, I loved them:



They're everything you want in a Who theme: they maintain the classic Delia Derbyshire theme and daggy sci-fi imagery (ooh, a Time Vortex!) while updating it just enough, courtesy of Murray Gold's The Chase counter-melody, to suit the tastes of younger viewers raised on the bombast of Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfmann.

Sure, they don't make them like they used to, and that's probably a good thing. Unload the old Colin Baker titles (1984) on today's audiences and Family First would probably decry them as drug propaganda:



Groovy, man!

It set me thinking about the value of a good opening credits sequence, and how we seem to be stepping out of a decade or so of forgettable titles into a new era in which the opening credits themselves are almost a mini-masterpiece to stand alongside the series they herald.

Indeed, I'm sure I wasn't the only person to spot, within The Eleventh Hour, a little wink and nod to the creepy breakfast-set opening titles of Dexter. As The Doctor and Amelia Pond served up a midnight nosh of bacon, baked beans and bread and butter, all shot with panache and edited with queasy dynamism, all I could think of was Dexter's morning fry-up:



Or look at the Mad Men opening titles, so iconic that - in a delicious bit of televisual meta-ness - The Simpsons then ripped them off for one of that show's brilliant opening sequences.

Perhaps I'm more attuned to a good opening sequence than most. In the '90s, arguably the last great era for iconic openers, I was such a TV nerd I taught myself to play this on piano:



And this:
(It's true, as a high school student, I had a rich and varied social life.)

Opening titles, while required on television, are, I guess, a typically cinematic indulgence. If you only have half or an hour to work within, there's not much room for wit or innovation on the small-screen. Not surprisingly, most non-cable shows go for brevity instead of brilliance.

Locally, we don't have much to work with. Australian opening title sequences effectively work within two realms: colourful, daggy and energetic (Packed To The Rafters, Neighbours, Home & Away, et al) or moody and downbeat (Underbelly, Love My Way).

And lest we forget this tribute to the joys of quadrangle sports, cyclone wire and flannel shirts:



It'd be great to see something local come along and blow the viewer out of their seat with a cracking title sequence.

Until then, I'll wait patiently for the day when an Australian television show can match or better the brilliance of our finest ever contribution to the world of opening titles:



Checkmate, Don Draper.