I'll reserve full judgement until I've seen them move, but first impressions are - yes, lovely. And thank *fuck* they haven't gone down the "people idents" look.

Love the colour as well.

In fact, interestingly, they look a lot like the *trailer* bumpers of the 1991 set, rather than the actual idents themselves...

They look classy which is the description all BBC Two idents should aspire to.

It's just a shame they're keeping the ugly box that doesn't work in widescreen, rather than going back to the 91-style centred logo, like BBC ONE did.

Having said that, FOUR has made the box work pretty well.

Larger images.

Meh... they look nice, but they're still live action, like every other fucking channel.

True, but then most of the 91 BBC2 idents were live action, and they're the best idents ever!

I think it suits the channel pretty well. The *symbol* is still paramount, rather than people, unlike a lot of channels - that's the most important thing.

> True, but then most of the 91 BBC2 idents were live action, and they're the best idents ever!

Agreed, but they were just pure physical effects. The problem with these new ones, for me, is that they show real things like a car, a man being chased, a festival etc. It's too 'real' and, when you boil it down, just the same idea that EVERY OTHER CHANNEL has had over the last few years.

Still, keeping the '2' shape is good. And I do like them... it's just they're not quite what I wanted.

It is true that they're rather more rooted in reality than they could have been. I just don't mind that, really, although Tent and Sunroof look a bit bland in this regard. I'll reserve full judgement until I see them moving, though.

Others are just great, though. Zoetrope especially reminds me so much of an old-style BBC2 ident.

I wonder what the worst ident they could possibly do would be. Maybe Ricky Gervais's face filling the screen and him repeating 'this is BBC2, obviously' over and over again. Or a '2' with legs walking around London landmarks. Or maybe a scene of a woman giving birth and they hand her a '2' wrapped in a blanket.

> Or maybe a scene of a woman giving birth and they hand her a '2' wrapped in a blanket.

I'm sure that's been done. Not perhaps with an ident but as part of an advertising campaign.

you say rooted in reality but dont you think there is something other worldly about a massive 2 in the environment?

Oh yes, of course - but still, they're rather less abstract than the 91 set, I think.

yes but personally i think it would be backtracking if they were all really abstract. at least they are original.

NEWSFLASH: DAILY MAIL IN "MAIL MAKES BIGGER ARSE OF ITSELF THAN USUAL" SHOCK

Seriously. You know how everyone with any sense thought they just copy and pasted their rants and changed a few words? It's true:

And now on BBC2...the 15-second link that cost £700,000

[...]

A BBC2 spokesman said: "Three of the scenes were filmed in £1.2million on 80 seconds of footage featuring synchronised swimming hippos, surfers, kite-flyers and children playing in a meadow.

The clips replaced previous segues introduced in 2002 costing £700,000 and featuring dancers in wheelchairs, Bollywood performers and tangoing couples.

Note the oh-so-subtle error...

Quite apart from getting the numbers 1 and 2 mixed up, they also seem to forget that 700,000 is FUCK ALL when you consider the idents will be used for years to come. Cretins.

Why let facts get in the way of a rant against the BBC?

No, it's not that they "got 1 and 2 mixed up" - this wasn't an article about the "circle" BBC1 idents, it's about the new 2s. They copy and pasted from their old article and forgot to change some of it bar the find'n'replace on 1-->2...

Fucking hell. That is fantastic.

One to mail to Private Eye, I think. Although they've probably already got it.

Video clips of Tent and Zoetrope now on Media Guardian. The latter is MEGA.

>No, it's not that they "got 1 and 2 mixed up" - this wasn't an article about the "circle" BBC1 idents, it's about the new 2s. They copy and pasted from their old article and forgot to change some of it bar the find'n'replace on 1-->2...

Yes, I know. I just didn't word it very well.

Well, Tent and Zoetrope are on the BBC TWO site.

It looks like my predictions were correct - Tent is really pretty dull, and not as good as any of the current set of 2s. Ont the other hand, Zoetrope is the best new ident I've seen for ages.