Is it just me, or do the opening songs (or the credits) of many TV shows exceed the excitement inside episodes?

This was not more exciting

Usually in these types of questions it’s not exclusively you, that with close to 8 billion people on earth in mind.
But..
I think you might have noticed something true; TV makers want to grab you by the gonads, the second the tape rolls.
The more bombastic audio and video they put in the first twenty, thirty seconds, the bigger the chance you’ll stick around (to give it, at least, a try).

One that stood out to me, then, and that came to mind when I typed this response, was the theme to NYPD Blue.
I watched it when the first episode was airing, and was hooked immediately (I think it was quite good, the series).

^I loved that show.

Very frequently. The one that comes immediately to my mind is Ironside – the classic show where the main character gets shot in the intro sequence, and then in all the episodes, he’s in a wheelchair.

Also The Prisoner. Hawaii Five-O. T.J. Hooker. Space: 1999 (especially the second season intro, which went nuts) ... I could go on…

Hmmm. Interesting question. I agree with one of the others who answered here: showrunners, their writing team, everyone involved in show development, etc. want to grab people up front and generate interest…in attempting to do that, they might go for uptempo, hard hitting music, and credits that have an unusual font and behave like a power point presentation on steroids. But for the really exceptional shows (my taste runs to “Breaking Bad,” “Six Feet Under”, “The Sopranos”, “Dexter”, and more recently, “Bosch”, “Line of Duty”, “Longmire” and others of that calibre) I think great pains are taken to “match out” the credits with the tone\mood\vibe of the show. Interestingly, with Dexter, which is coming back in the fall after 10 years, the opening credits (I read) will CHANGE ENTIRELY, because the series itself will have a different setting, cast of supporting characters, etc, By the way, I don’t want to misrepresent myself. I am not in the business or anything. Just a content enthusiast and, um, armchair critic.

@Astoriagrrrl56 Good points! It’s a bad sign if the show conspicuously doesn’t live up to its own opening. The opening should make you want to watch the show… the actual show, and not make you want to watch something more like the opening than the actual show is.

Of course, that’s more the fault of the show itself, and/or the mismatch. I was always disappointed after seeing the intro to Ironside and then trying to watch the show, even though the show isn’t bad – it just tends to be very much unlike the intro, which to me screams IT’S TIME FOR SERIOUS ACTION! Quentin Tarantino got it right using that theme music inside Kill Bill Volume I, for the cue that serious combat was about to go down.

Remember “Medical Center” with Chad Everett? I was about 13 and had the biggest crush on him, but wasn’t allowed to watch it because it was for grown-ups. Once when my parents were gone I decided to watch it and the introduction ‘theme’ was a heartbeat. Scared me to death!

What? I only watch TV for the music.

I don’t really watch TV but some of the music associated with the series (mostly British) that I’ve watched on Netflix and Prime is fantastic.