Monthly Archives: October 2018

The New Music of the New “Doctor Who”: Two Takes

Funny. I enjoyed the episode “Rosa” and thought it bodes well for future episodes.

Perversely, though, I very much dislike the new main theme and musical underscoring for basically the very same reasons that the author of the article, “As the long-running science-fiction television series begins a new chapter with a woman in the lead role for the first time, its theme tune more or less restores the original musical conception,” prefers them. I feel like the main theme has been orchestrally eviscerated and abbreviated, and the aimless underscoring so enjoyed by the author reminds me of the musical underscore work Dennis McCarthy did on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, which was aimless, meandering, athematic, amelodic work which I loathed.

Some people apparently appreciated McCarthy’s work, and I’m told that his style was deliberately chosen by the producers, but I always felt that it made the series seem cheap and cheesy. What I enjoyed of the series was in spite of his work, or especially among the episodes he didn’t score. (The memorable Borg theme, for example, is not McCarthy’s but is the work of Ron Jones.)

I miss Bernard Herrmann, but at least we still have luminaries like Danny Elfman and the great John Williams for memorable film and TV scoring.

The article referenced can be accessed below:

“As the long-running science-fiction television series begins a new chapter with a woman in the lead role for the first time, its theme tune more or less restores the original musical conception.”

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-music-of-doctor-who-makes-a-glorious-return-to-form