TV Theme Retrospective: Rise Of The Miniseries

The Eighties in particular seem to have marked the craze for the miniseries, when TV producers realised that stuff like ‘Roots’ might have been a huge financial gamble compared to a relatively- cheap TV series, but had the potential to bring in massive audiences.

Of course, they soon ran out of good material to film. And so we had ‘Lace’ and other atrocities…

My personal favourite was the Civil War epic ’North And South’, a three-miniseries marathon based on the novels by John Jakes, and with a stirring theme tune by veteran of US drama series, Bill Conti (whose ‘Falcon Crest’ theme was another favourite of mine).

It also featured amazing opening credits in ‘brushstroke’ (a technique also used to good effect in 2010's Fox TV series 'Human Target'):

It was packed with well-known names from stage and screen – their salaries alone probably cost as much as a few real-life Civil War battles, and it’s still popular today. I once had the entire lot on video, and I must get around to getting them on DVD.

Next month's theme: Ex Libris.