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Posted: |
Feb 26, 2018 - 1:47 AM
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By: |
ZerOne
(Member)
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I tend to prefer TV scores over movie scores usually (though of course I adore movie scores too), as I tend to have a much more personal relationship with them. After all, you watch television shows usually over a longer period of time and often times specific cues are reoccurring in them.
Therefore, I thought I'd open this thread to discuss your favorite TV scores.
Current Shows
WESTWORLD - Ramin Djawadi's score for Westworld is currently one of my favorites, I'd say I even prefer it over his GOT work, though I might be a bit biased, because I am not a GOT watcher/fan. I think it's just a beautifully done score, I like the main title theme, the Sweetwater cue or just the adaption of popular songs like Paint it Black as score. Djawadi in general has proven to be such a great composer, his music for Prison Break was great too.
THE GOOD PLACE / BOJACK HORSEMAN - Sitcom score usually doesn't stand out as much, because it doesn't quite get as much screen time, but I like the scores on these two shows. On The Good Place the score adds a lot to the pacing and the dramatic structure of the show, while on Bojack Horseman I really love the fairly simple sad melodies that play whenever something sad happens.
STRANGER THINGS - Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein did some really great work on Stranger Things.
Cancelled/Ended Shows
DIRK GENTLY'S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY - The score for the first season of this quirky offbeat show really proves how much the identity of a show is entangled in the music. The score by Cristobal Tapia de Veer was just utterly perfect for this show and complimented the show so much. When they changed composers for the second season, the series felt like an entirely different show and the new composers IMO had trouble evoking the style by Tapia de Veer. I hope this quirky little show will get a score release too, even though it got cancelled. The music in the ending montage for the first season alone is gorgeous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeeD0pm9TSo
CARNIVALE - Jeff Beal is probably more renowned for House of Cards these days, but his score for this short-lived HBO series was nothing but breathtaking. I think my interest and fascination with the show is very closely tied to his excellent score that set up the magical world of Carnivale's 1930s so beautifully. I am still thankful to this day that Beal even decided to upload his entire season two score onto his website after he realized that there probably wouldn't be a second soundtrack release.
ENLIGHTENED - Another brilliant and short-lived HBO series with beautiful score. This time by Mark Mothersbaugh. He just hit the exact right notes for this compassionate, fun series. So sad that there was never a score release, but understandable, considering that it was never a show that was watched by many.
DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES - Steve Jablonsky's work on this nighttime soap was just fantastic and to this day I am still disappointed that it never got a proper release. I really only liked the first season of the show, but I kept watching the show for five seasons and I think it was mainly due to the amazing work by Jablonsky. Season 1 alone has so many memorable cues, theoretically, they could do an entire soundtrack album with just the closing themes from each episode. Desperate Housewives isn't exactly a fandom-type of show, so I can partially understand why it was never released, but I think many people would love to own the music, even if they're not diehard-fans of the series. It's kind of awful to think that shows like Gypsy or Revenge got score releases, but not this one.
DEXTER - Daniel Licht's work on Dexter was also one of my favorites. He created this wonderfully dynamic score that had the right balance between eerie, sad and light. And his score is again an example of how great music can also hide bad writing. I probably wouldn't have needed 7 soundtracks though, in the end I mostly listen to the first soundtrack, even though it's also kind of neat to have so many different variations of the Blood cue. (RIP Daniel Licht, much missed).
FIREFLY - Edmonson's score to Firefly is in my opinion much more superior to the movie score, but mostly because there are so many different elements to it that you don't hear that often in just one piece of work, while the movie score often times just feels like typical blockbuster movie score. I am a bit disappointed though how some of the suites on the soundtrack are edited together. To go from the eerie River's perception cue to the more action-packed Saffron cue for example doesn't make any sense to me.
BUFFY / ANGEL - Obviously. I already talked a lot about these scores in other threads here. To me, the Buffy score in particular will probably always be my favorite TV score.
MISFITS - Vince Pope's score for Misfits really made the show look much more expensive than it really was and is also one of the things that hooked me on the show. He also did great work for Black Mirror.
DEAD LIKE ME - Stewart Copeland and Tom Maxwell did great work on this short-lived Showtime series, I think it wasn't an easy show to score with its mix of dark humour, emotional moments and life observations, as proven by Richard Marvin who didn't really find the show in the follow-up movie (but that script was also not particularly great) but they definitely hit the right tone for the show and I am happy LLR released a soundtrack to it, even though the show was cancelled so many years before.
RECTIFY - Beautiful simple subtle score by Gabriel Mann.
BANSHEE - Methodic Doubt also did a really fun score to this Cinemax action series about a tortured ex-con turned sheriff. Also a show where I really wish that there was a score release.
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA - Bear McCreary has done a lot of amazing work, but I think his best work will always be Battlestar Galactica, which had its own very distinctive style and this is again a show where the score really caught my attention, particularly when I was sometimes bored watching the actual content of it.
Honorable Mention
ALIAS / LOST - I am not the biggest fan of Michael Giacchino, even though his score for both of these shows was gorgeous and elevated the material to new heights. I think for me the reason why I don't like him as much is that for me his score doesn't work so well on its own as much as other scores, which of course it doesn't have to, because its main function is to serve the narrative and not to stand on its own. Or maybe it's also just the fact that I cannot really assign most of his cues to specific moments, aside from maybe a few exceptions, I don't know.
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The Walking Dead, Dexter, Fargo, Game of Thrones I enjoyed enough to buy. Varied types of scores that all worked well in the series. The Twighlight Zone, too, obviously.
Would love music from Columbo. Some great stuff there.
Lots of great TV themes over the years but I don't recall the music from episodes of stuff like Knight Rider, BSG, The Professionals etc.
Star Trek TOS has great music though I don't own it.
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Doctor Who - ancient and modern
Star Trek: tOS
The Prisoner
Space 1999 and other Barry Gray scored Gerry Anderson productions
The Avengers by Laurie Johnson
Robin of Sherwood
Camelot
Merlin
Batman the Animated Series
Batman 1960s
The Flash - 1980s
The Tripods
The Outer Limits OS
The Twilight Zone OS
The Invaders
Game of Thrones
Godless
Torchwood:Children of Earth
Lost in Space and the rest of the Irwin Allen productions
As with many on here I suspect, most are in the sf/fantasy category, but I'm sure there's more when I can think of them. But tv is definitely as fertile a ground for great music as the cinema. No doubt about that.
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Off the top of my head...
"Batman: The Animated Series"
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
"CHiPs"
"Gunsmoke"
"Family Guy"
"Futurama"
"Justice League"/"Justice League Unlimited"
"Knight Rider"
"Magnum, pi"
"Miami Vice"
"Nash Bridges" (specifically Eddie Jobson's work)
"MillenniuM"
"My Life and Times" (a short-lives series scores by Holdridge, Clausen, and Davis)
"The Prisoner" (the original series)
"Quantum Leap"
"Seaquest DSV"
"The Simpsons" (all the composers, except the new Bleeding Fingers machine)
"Star Trek"
"Star Trek: The Next Generation"
"Superman: The Animated Series"
In fact, every Star Trek series (except, of course, Discovery).
"The X-Files"
I've undoubtedly forgotten shows.
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I really like quite a bit of McCreary's scoring for WD. It's the songs that I find at times excruciating.
Besides Jerry Goldsmith's landmark in television scoring expressivity, QB VII, I've never heard anything more interestingly scored for that medium than Bernard's Little Girl Lost and of course the wonderful Walking Distance, the latter two are each from the Twilight Zone.
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Masada
Poledouris: Lonesome Dove
Those are in my queue. If only there was another Masada release...
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)
