A cold open in a television program is the technique of jumping directly into a story at the beginning or opening of the show, before the title sequence or opening credits are shown. The technique itself is ancient; Horace gave it the Latin name "In medias res" - "Into the middle things". Poems which use this technique include the Iliad, the Odyssey, and Paradise Lost. It is the opposite of ab initio - "from the beginning"
Cinematically, the cold open can last anywhere from less than a minute up to ten minutes (or more in rare circumstances). Perhaps the best known example is the pre-title "teaser" of all James Bond films since From Russia With Love. Several well known shows that begin with a "cold open" are Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Alias, The X-Files, Saturday Night Live, and Law & Order.
