[James2001]

The first episode is still up on All4, can someone look and see how it is on there? I can't right now.

[Si-Co]

The first episode is still up on All4, can someone look and see how it is on there? I can't right now.

It’s probably the same as the STV version - at least it was when Channel 4/More 4 repeated it in 2007.

Another thing I've noticed is the strongly varying episode lengths- some are over 26 minutes long, but a couple only run to around 21, that's a lot of variation. I'd expect a minute or two between episodes, but not 5.

I’ve noticed that too - nothing appears to have been cut. Notice how long the credits run in some episodes compared to others.

Like you, I find it very frustrating that you can’t turn off auto-play so it skips to the next episode just as the end credits start rolling.

[James2001]

The only ways I found to stop autoplay is either to watch via the website and in full screen, then credits run in full with no pop ups- but that limits you to being able to watch on your phone, computer or tablet, but not on the TV.

On the Roku app, if you press the back button, then press cancel when it asks if you want to stop watching, the credits run, but with both the pop up link to the next episode and the progress bar staying on screen covering half of it up so you can barely read them anyway. This doesn't work on the Virgin Media app, the countdown just resumes if you try, can't speak for other platforms though.

STV seem to be the only ones who make watching the credits so tough, other streaming services it's a single button press to stop the countdown, if not an option in the menu to disable autoplay entirely. If they only made it easy to keep watching the credits and streamed the video in 50fps, it would be perfect.

I know as a free streaming service, it's in their interests to keep people watching and promote other content, but they don't have to make the end credits all but impossible to watch to do that.

[Scrotnig]

Brookside always seemed to have widely varying end credit lengths. On occasion the theme music fades in almost from the very start (took me years to work out how it DOES start, as it it’s not the same as the opening theme music), other times it fades in quite close to the end and the credits scroll really quickly. We’ve seen both in these ten episodes. Also the first two had that different edit of the theme that runs on past where it usually ends.

[Si-Co]

Brookside always seemed to have widely varying end credit lengths. On occasion the theme music fades in almost from the very start (took me years to work out how it DOES start, as it it’s not the same as the opening theme music), other times it fades in quite close to the end and the credits scroll really quickly. We’ve seen both in these ten episodes. Also the first two had that different edit of the theme that runs on past where it usually ends.

Although the music stopped at the usual place, Episode Seven played the closing theme right from the start, which is quite unusual. The “extended” version we heard in the first two episodes is occasionally used in 1983, but after that only on the final episode of each year which includes all the cast and crew who contributed to the show in the last twelve months and a wave from the cast and some crew. After the theme changed in, I think, 1991 we never heard an extended version and by 1994 the closing credits across all channels were shortened. 

First time around, I started watching in mid-1983 and like you I didn’t know how the closing theme started. Occasionally we were teased when they played a bit more of it than normal but it was only when I bought the record that I heard the first bars of the “quiet” part of the theme.

[James2001]

The Museum of Liverpool actually has a copy of the 7" of the Brookside theme on display.

It was 1990 when the theme tune changed- the very last episode of the year for that matter. Strangely though, titles didn't change, that didn't happen until October 91 (and much of the footage from those titles lasted for the next 11 years). In fact the 1991 episode on All4 is, going through the surrounding episodes on YouTube, the first to use those titles.

[Scrotnig]

Brookside always seemed to have widely varying end credit lengths. On occasion the theme music fades in almost from the very start (took me years to work out how it DOES start, as it it’s not the same as the opening theme music), other times it fades in quite close to the end and the credits scroll really quickly. We’ve seen both in these ten episodes. Also the first two had that different edit of the theme that runs on past where it usually ends.

Although the music stopped at the usual place, Episode Seven played the closing theme right from the start, which is quite unusual. The “extended” version we heard in the first two episodes is occasionally used in 1983, but after that only on the final episode of each year which includes all the cast and crew who contributed to the show in the last twelve months and a wave from the cast and some crew. After the theme changed in, I think, 1991 we never heard an extended version and by 1994 the closing credits across all channels were shortened. 

First time around, I started watching in mid-1983 and like you I didn’t know how the closing theme started. Occasionally we were teased when they played a bit more of it than normal but it was only when I bought the record that I heard the first bars of the “quiet” part of the theme.

Yes I started in mid 1983 as well so had never seen that episode 7 with the complete music played out. That one does seem odd, perhaps the episode under-ran as there is also a freeze frame at the end which they never normally did. Though the music starts before the freeze frame so I don’t know quite what’s gone on there. 

To my knowledge that’s the only time the entire theme was ever used. If I’d only started watching a bit sooner, my obsessive teenage search for ever longer plays of the closing theme (recording them off air with a cassette recorder just in case!) would have been unnecessary. Though I may not have become the man I am!

It was also a long time before I realised the “quiet” part of the theme was actually five bars and not four! I think I caught a trailing note of what transpired to be the first bar at one point, and once I realised that I also realised it could actually be an infinite loop! (Although it wasn’t, it was just five).

And I still think it bears more than a passing resemblance to that Jean Michel Jarre song!

[Si-Co]

This one? I’ve always thought so too. 

youtu.be 

[Scrotnig]

This one? I’ve always thought so too. 

youtu.be 

Yep that’s the one.

As a teenager I thought perhaps it was just me being silly. Then the internet came along and lots of people mentioned it.

There are some alternative recordings of the original Brookside theme which sound similar to the one used on tv but where the similarities to Equinox Part 5 are a bit more pronounced. In fact the “longer” version used on episode one is a bit like that…it’s not just the extension at the end, it actually seems to be a different recording, albeit only subtly different. Used to notice it every time it was used, I could tell from how it sounded that we would be getting the extra bit at the end.

[Si-Co]

Actually, on watching the end of Episode Two again, the extra bit isn’t as long as it is on some later episodes - sometimes they played a couple of bars from the next “verse”, as heard on the 7” record.