(Furtive instrumental music playing.)

[ETA: the rest of the adjectives from Season 1. A complete list.]

I know this pegs me as out of the loop, but what can I say, we don’t get a lot of channels. So tonight (having joined the Blockbuster version of Netflix; it’s pretty cool), we started watching season one of 24. It kind of cracks me up that it’s in “real time,” and yet the show itself is only 41 or 42 minutes long. But it’s cool. Very gripping.

We watch just about everything for the first time with the subtitles or captions on. Our kids are far from the noisiest I have ever encountered, but it helps us to follow what’s going on above the confusion. (Some shows are really awesome with subtitles –coughJossWhedoncough– while others suffer a little; when the only dialogue is “Run!” and “Look out!” more or less over and over, however appropriate for the movie itself, reading it in subtitles kind of makes it seem a little silly.)

So, watching 24, the titlers apparently felt the need to give the music cues as well (and frequently – cuz you couldn’t tell from the dramatic lighting or the acting what the mood was s’posed to be? Hm). Listing pertinent sound effects (wind howling in trees, or the like; and sometimes the type of music playing, “hard rock,” “alternative rock,” “ska-punk dance” etc, if the characters are listening to something) is the norm, but what cracked me up this evening was the range of description. So, for your viewing pleasure, here they are – each was followed by “instrumental music playing”:

• Dramatic
• Ominous
• Furtive
• Oppressive
• Suspenseful
• Somber
• Mysterious
• Sinister
• Terrifying
• Solemn
• Eerie

And all of these were within the same episode! I cheered for each new adjective. I can only hope they’ll come up with some others in future episodes for me to add to my list…

ETA: the rest

• Tense
• Sad
• Dramatic music escalates
• Tender
• Sensual
• Foreboding
• Climactic
• Surreal
• Sentimental
• Poignant