‘Seinfeld,’ ‘Justified’ & 8 More TV Theme Songs Fans Hate (VIDEO)
Many TV themes set the mood immediately: Think about the spooky synths of The X-Files, the epic strings of Game of Thrones, the majestic swells of The West Wing.
Others become breakout hits: You can probably sing the themes for Friends and Dawson’s Creek.
And then there are the TV themes that have viewers scrambling for the mute button. (Good thing Netflix has a “Skip Intro” button.) Below, check out 10 TV theme songs that are polarizing—if not completely reviled—along with damning reviews from fans and critics.
America’s Next Top Model
Grunge’s Scott Harris-King said this techno intro is “essentially just [Tyra] Banks groaning out the phrase ‘Wanna be on top?’ over and over again while startled background singers gasp in surprise that this is somehow a thing that exists.”
Firefly
Some fans love this bluesy intro, and others detest it. “Firefly is crazy brilliant, but theme song is perhaps the worst TV theme song ever,” tweeted author Ryan L. Schrodt. “I blame the show’s cancellation on that song alone.”
Justified
“The music is good, and starts off catchy, but whenever the bluegrass-meets-West Coast rap kicks in, my thumb instinctively fast-forwards to the show,” wrote The Film Stage’s Marc V. Ciafardini.
Homeland
“What a stinker of a theme,” Reddit user colin132 wrote. “Random trumpets and voices does nothing to set up the mood for me.”
The L Word
Viewers weren’t happy when The L Word introduced “The Way That We Live” by Betty as its theme song in Season 2. Entertainment Weekly’s Nicholas Fonseca declared it a “godawful new intro” that “is every self-respecting L Word fan’s bete noire.”
The Mindy Project
“The theme song is like nails on a chalkboard,” observed Vanity Fair’s Katey Rich. “It sets the obnoxious tone that the show really successfully avoids.”
New Girl
The theme song, sung by star Zooey Deschanel herself, made for “a twee credits sequence that never seemed to fit the smarter tone of the show—and which may have done an even greater disservice to it than that whole ‘adorkable’ ad campaign,” observed A.V. Club’s A.A. Dowd.
Seinfeld
“It’s basically the aural equivalent of Elaine’s dancing. If you walked into a bar and that stuff was happening, you’d walk right back out,” said Sound on Sight’s Mark Young. Added Radio Times’ Thomas Ling: “There’s probably a reason why you don’t hear more slap bass in modern comedies.”
The Shield
“I LOVE The Shield, but awful theme song,” Reddit user hundred100 wrote. “It’s like salsa metal. Luckily, it’s only 4 seconds.”
Star Trek: Enterprise
Fans launched multiple petitions to rid Enterprise of its theme song, “Faith of the Heart,” a power ballad sung by British opera-turned-pop star Russell Watson. One petition deemed the song “not fit to be scraped off the bottom of a Klingon’s boot.”
