Carte Blanche on M-Net (DStv 101) has returned the weekly investigative magazine show's award-winning introductory theme and iconic music although in a severely abbreviated form.
The long running Combined Artistic Productions show earlier this year, and for the first time ever, completely cut its award-winning new introduction sequence just after it won a prize and dumped the Sunday evening M-Net show's iconic and instantly recognisable theme tune.
Viewers were not happy.
The situation was worsened by Carte Blanche anchor's telling viewers who just got voted out in Survivor South Africa: Champions and spoiling that M-Net show for viewers who haven't yet watched it.
Carte Blanche also got rid of the overview of different stories at the top of the hour where anchors such as Derek Watts and Bongani Bingwa told viewers all of the segments that an episode of the magazine show will be covering.
Now a truncated and edited down 15 second intro theme, together with the iconic orchestral score, is back on Sunday evenings at 19:00. The Survivor South Africa: Champions spoilers have also been eliminated.
Not back though on Carte Blanche is the short introduction of what segments the show will be covering, but viewers are already responding positively to "Carte Blanche's return to sanity".
"You instantly know you're watching Carte Blanche again - Carte Blanche! - and not some transient news headlines kind of show," a viewer told TV with Thinus about the return of the theme music and echoing the sentiments of several viewers.
"It feels more real with the music back. As if Carte Blanche is doing effort and is a real credible programme and real appointment television if there is a proper opening theme, instead of just suddenly throwing stories at you," said another.
