Who could forget the opening scene of “Lost” – in JJ Abrams and the masterpiece of Damon Lindelof of a pilot episode – where our hero, Jack (Matthew Fox), wakes up in a jungle on an apparently inhabited island to find the wreck of his ocean flight and his survivors howling and wandering on the shock? It is one of the most effective, mysterious and captivating cold openings ever made. But what exactly is “open cold”?
On television, A Cold Open is the very first scene of an episode that still appears before the title card (or the opening credits) of a given series. It is one of the biggest narrative tools for television writers. It can come in many different forms and forms, generally taking five to ten minutes (and in rare examples, much longer) to immediately capture the viewer’s attention as powerful as possible.
Mainly, they serve as teasersTrying to establish the tone, the atmosphere and the atmosphere of the show before even discovering what the intrigue is talking about. They can be used in any genre (from sitcoms to the mysteries of murder) for various reasons, but at the same effect. The best writers take advantage of it masterfully to grasp the public and never let them go. If you wish, the cold openings are like metaphorical gateway medications to a world that sucks you and makes you add to know more and the characters that fill it.
A cold open hangs the spectator starting in class
The cold opens, although clear, can be used endlessly, according to the main goal of the writer. The sitcoms generally opt for a banger joke in advance with regard to cold openings, and two of the best to do so were the immortal classics of Greg Daniels (and Michael Schur), “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation”. There are dozens of hilarious examples to quote, like Jim (John Krasinski) has usurped the identity of Dwight Lunatic Dwight of Rainn Wilson both in Look and insufficient behavior, or in Ron Faking de Nick Offerman to take out his own tooth with a pliers, which makes his co-workors cry out, See such horror.
But if you ask me, the most powerful and intriguing cold openings that tend to live without rent in the minds of fans often come from mysteries and heavy dramas. I have to revoke “lost” again because it is the series that raised the mysteries through the cold out at another level. There are many to choose, but the opener of season 2 presenting Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) as a man living in Underground solitude in a dark bunker with the only company of a biping computer (while Cass Elliot “Make Your Of Music” in the background) is one of the biggest WTF moment in television.
And I cannot go without mentioning how Vince Gilligan practically gave new life to Cold Open in his modern masterpiece, “Breaking Bad”. It is not that he revolutionized the cold openings, but rather to what extent he experienced with them, sometimes becoming completely obscure, delivering short films at the beginning of certain episodes before diving or continuing the intrigue. Again, there are different examples to choose, such as Danny Trejo’s tortug meeting the cousins of Salamanca, and with them his tragic fate, while his beheaded head is found on a turtle. But the one you have probably heard of, even if you have not seen a minute of the show (he exploded the Internet at the time), is the episode “Say My Name” of season 5. In his open cold, Bryan Cranston delivers a master’s degree in force by simply forcing a lower criminal (and frankly without any idea) to say his name. No matter the number of times you look at it, it will give you chills on every occasion.
This is the power of a cold open to the height.
