Hi, does anybody know if MG will keep doing the score for the upcoming series? I'm listening to the fantastic 4th series score right know (Doctor's goosebump theme playing) and I almost can't imagine the show without this style of music. Or will they change the style so completely that they also hire(d) a new composer?
I think they should keep him, all I ask is that occasionally they turn the music down so I can hear what the characters are saying
Hopefully, Wenger and Moffat can hire a composer based in Cardiff, or who can visit Cardiff frequently to properly spot the music during post. Gold's scores were sometimes subject to brutal edits to make a piece fit the scene. I would also like a composer who can write for the scene, rather than a composer who writes movements that are then plugged into the scene. (The third season is, I think, particularly egregious in that regard. It's one thing to have recurring motifs across a string of episodes. It's something else entirely to have what is clearly the same performance of music chopped to fit multiple episodes and multiple scenes. See "Utopia" for the worst example.)
Gold is one of the best things to ever happen to the series, he has brought a very epic feel to the whole thing and it would be a crime to lose him.
I have to wonder how much of that is Gold not being able to make it there to see things, and how much is simply the production not finishing things in a timely manner? While some TV shows like Stargate seem to be pretty good about getting final or mostly-final edits to the composers, I think that's the exception and not the norm.
Although occasionally I have reservations about Gold's music or the way it's worked into the show, I think he was fundamentally the right composer for the RTD era. If Moffat thinks he's also right for the new vision of the show, great; if not, a new composer is the way to go.
See, in some ways, to me, Gold's music is the heart and soul of the show in a way that even the showrunner is not. It is, after all, literally the only thing aside from the presence of the TARDIS that's been constant in every episode of the series. Without Gold, I really don't know if it will still be Doctor Who for me. And I literally don't think Gold has ever made a mistake. His scores for even the low points of the series -- "Daleks in Manhattan"/"Evolution of the Daleks" -- were wonderful.
I think Doctor Who is evolving as it should when it no longer feels like Doctor Who to devoted fans. There aren't a whole lot of people who like the RTD era more than I do. Nothing is ever flawless, but I love the past four-plus years' worth of the show about as much as I've loved any fiction in any medium. Steven Moffat's brilliant and I have no doubt that he'll make wonderful Doctor Who, but it's unlikely that I'll feel the same way about it that I do about Davies' version. And yet, I welcome the change, because it's what Doctor Who needs. As always, there will be people who don't like what it becomes, who drift away from the programme, but new people will come in in their place, and the show will have a new lease of life. There's a reason they're calling Steven Moffat's first year "series one." I'm sure Doctor Who like it is now could run for a few more years easily. But, as RTD said in an SFX interview last year, what's the point of that? The format is indefinitely sustainable, if you treat it right. It's bigger than any one set of fans. Part of the reason Doctor Who fandom is so divided is that most people have one era they prize above the others, the era they think of as proper Doctor Who, the era against which everything that comes after is judged and found wanting. I'll try my damnedest not to, but I have no doubt I'll use the RTD years as a yardstick in judging Moffat's programme. It's all part of the cycle.
Even I know there came a time when Gold wasn't around you know, like from 1963 to 1989 I'm glad Gold was around, he gave us great songs like "This is Gallifrey Our home, Our Childhood" and "Doomsday" Also Matt Smith deserves at least one "MURRAY GOLD!!!!!" moment It's worst when Tennant mumbles 10th- mumble mumble not from this planet. *runs hand through hair* *Fires of Pompei*
This is true...and it isn't just the new series guilty of it, I watched Seeds of Death for the first time a few months ago and the soundtrack is really LOUD!
That sounds like a contradiction in terms--the format is indefinitely sustainable, if you change the format?
I dunno. BBC Books editor Justin Richards famously said that not even the Doctor is essential in Doctor Who.
Sure, but I don't like DW TOS. And that's fair enough. The show should keep evolving and changing, especially since it has long-since abandoned the relatively stable format it had during the first two seasons of "the Doctor and Rose go somewhere and have an adventure." And if I or other people lose interest, well, hey, we'll always have our RTD-era DVDs. But I still hope Gold stays -- in part to keep SOME continuity in the production office, and mostly because his music is perfect for the show and has worked beautifully with every writer, especially Moffat's "The Girl in the Fireplace."
Ummm Dudley Simpson was a genius don't put him down. Put down Malcolm Clarke or Peter Howell but don't put Dudley down.