There’s a fine art to crafting a show’s title sequence. It needs to be instantly catchy — matched with a good theme song — while revealing characters or plot. And it has to be repeatable. The perfect openings are the ones that are unskippable, whether it’s because they offer story teases (see: Only Murders in the Building) or because they just too damned compelling (see: Peacemaker).
One of this year’s standouts is Murderbot. The intro to the Apple TV sci-fi series, based on the bestselling Murderbot Diaries book series by Martha Wells and produced by Paul and Chris Weitz (whose writing and producing credits range from American Pie to Rogue One), checks all the boxes. There’s the propulsive main title. Eye-popping CGI animation of doll-like robots, executed in a stop-motion style. And enough of the Season 1 story that it might have warranted a spoiler warning. The intro had its fans in the Television Academy, who rewarded it with nominations for Outstanding Title Design and Outstanding Main Title Theme Music at the 2026 Emmys.
Gold Derby assembled the team behind the title — composer Amanda Jones, creative director Hazel Baird, and 3D artist Joe Paniagua — to provide a quick oral history of the “banger” opening.
Amanda Jones (composer): What’s really fantastic about this experience is that I wrote the music prior to it being created and animated. That’s the best-case scenario for everyone. This was version 2 — what we hear in the main title. It’s always funny to say this, but having read the books, having read the script, having been working on the show, I was head and shoulders deep into it, so I had time to think about how I wanted to represent the main title.
Ultimately, I settled on something fun, snappy, and chaotic — something that encompasses all the elements of Murderbot. There’s the wires tripping, so there’s a lot of ear candy, like a robot that’s on the fritz. But all the while it’s a robot, so it’s very mechanical, very on the rails. And then he’s heroic — the soaring of melody. I wanted to capture all of those elements in the main title. We recorded it with a full orchestra at Warner Bros., and it was amazing.
You’ll find every aspect of the instrumentation is woven into the main title, so you can hear every little thread that exists. It’s all there.
Hazel Baird (main title design creative director): In the first design phase, we didn’t have the music, and then we eventually did — it’s so great when we get the music before we start. I remember working with Paul and Chris. They really wanted certain story elements in there, so we worked with them on the story. They wanted it in the factory; they wanted him to have this autonomy and realize that he’d be free. But he’s got to look after these humans that he’s not so keen on.
So we simplified it, and then we wanted to make him a toy. They were really excited about making him an action figure almost — something you could pick up. We wanted to build that whole environment, and Joe helped with building the toy and creating it, and all the other figures as well. It was really exciting to get the music and to be able to get those beats up front. We were still in the storyboard stage — the design was almost complete, but we were still using storyboard. So it was really great to get Mandy’s music early on. That really helped.
Joe Paniagua (3D artist): The toy was actually really fun to make. It’s based off of my childhood toys, which is great. I think the reason it works so well is because I made it based off of real-world toys that I used to play with. It functions as a real toy once you build and model it. It works like a toy and it moves like a toy, and it’s very fun. It’s a dream project. They told me, “Here’s what it looks like, just go nuts.” And I did, and it was a lot of fun.
Baird: We really wanted him to feel like a character, which is quite hard to do in such a short time, to bring it to life in a minute and a half. But it was almost like a short animation, so that was really exciting. It’s very monotonous at the beginning, very black and white, and that was purposely done. And then all of a sudden his helmet lights up and he realizes he’s with all these other bots — he wants to be different. And you go into that sequence in space, and he comes out of that tunnel and just feels free. That was the most fun and exciting to do. I really loved that part — and then that realization when he goes thud and he’s back down on that real earth where he has to take care of these humans. That whole waking-up sequence was great to do.
They’ve emailed us [about Season 2], so I’m now thinking about what we’re going to do. It’ll be interesting to see what Chris and Paul have decided the story is, whether it’s different or maybe similar, but I’m excited about what it’s going to be.
Paniagua: Maybe more characters. You never know. We did a lot of characters, and some made it in, some didn’t, so it’ll be great to see what we can pull next.
Jones: I hope the main title stays the same for me — it’s such a banger.
This interview was edited and condensed.
The story and video are presented by Apple TV.
