Frankly I think Bermen is being misquoted since I think we've seen in all his time producing Trek, that the score has usually been complimentary to the performance. Especially when there are SEVERAL examples from all 3 spin off shows that contain episodes where music is prominately featured or intergrated into the story. So much so, Picards flute is in the menu for "Inner Light" and the "Scorpion theme" is featured through out season 4's Voyager discs. The whole ep. of "Counterpoint" used music as a metaphor.
Voyager Actors Deliberately Unemotional?
- Thread starter LOKAI of CHERON
- Start date
antiquityscion
Commander
With all respect to the actor, for the majority of the show's run, Travis wasn't a "major role" character.
When he was featured, he did good, he really shined in Mirror Darkly.
But in most of the episodes, he could have been replaced with a non-speaking extra, and it would have had no impact on the story. There are a very few episodes where you might be able to do the same thing with Malcolm or Hoshi, but only a few.
Maybe the ensemble cast was one too big for the writers to handle?
Agreed. Mayweather was just written poorly. Anthony Montgomery was nothing stellar, but did just fine acting a minor role.
Kim is the flip side: had been written as a mildly interesting secondary character, but acted very poorly by Wang.
Honestly, have some of us grown so disgruntled that we nitpick the choice of music now too?
Yevetha
Commodore
With all respect to the actor, for the majority of the show's run, Travis wasn't a "major role" character.
When he was featured, he did good, he really shined in Mirror Darkly.
But in most of the episodes, he could have been replaced with a non-speaking extra, and it would have had no impact on the story. There are a very few episodes where you might be able to do the same thing with Malcolm or Hoshi, but only a few.
Maybe the ensemble cast was one too big for the writers to handle?
Agreed. Mayweather was just written poorly. Anthony Montgomery was nothing stellar, but did just fine acting a minor role.
Kim is the flip side: had been written as a mildly interesting secondary character, but acted very poorly by Wang.
Seriously, whats interesting about Harry Kim?
His pretty hair?With all respect to the actor, for the majority of the show's run, Travis wasn't a "major role" character.
When he was featured, he did good, he really shined in Mirror Darkly.
But in most of the episodes, he could have been replaced with a non-speaking extra, and it would have had no impact on the story. There are a very few episodes where you might be able to do the same thing with Malcolm or Hoshi, but only a few.
Maybe the ensemble cast was one too big for the writers to handle?
Agreed. Mayweather was just written poorly. Anthony Montgomery was nothing stellar, but did just fine acting a minor role.
Kim is the flip side: had been written as a mildly interesting secondary character, but acted very poorly by Wang.
Seriously, whats interesting about Harry Kim?
Don't agree this is a nitpick - not at all. After season 3/4 of TNG most of the music included in TV Trek is without doubt some of the blandest, most nondescript I've heard - with a few notable exceptions.
Certainly, I felt TOS had a real musical indentity which added to the greatness of the show in no small way. The first couple of seasons of TNG were, although not quite as outstanding, similarly distinctive.
IMO, a more thematic apporach to the scoring of modern Trek would've really augmented it in a way that is greatly missed.
Exactly. Look at Ron Jones. He scored ten or so episodes a season for the first four seasons. After his spectacular score for the Best of Both Worlds, they let him go before the end of the next season. from the Mem Alpha article... "Despite the success of his work, Jones was fired from the crew of TNG under controversial circumstances near the end of the fourth season. His firing was supposedly because his music was thought to be "too noticeable" by Rick Berman. Jones has since been a major critic of Berman-era Trek; he cited the music of the subsequent Trek spin-offs as "less melodic and more pad-like."
The final moments of SGU show exactly the effect a good soundtrack can have on a scene. It was so well done.
I will have to check into that - I have yet to see the totality of "Inner Light" (shameful for a Trek fan, I know), and I remember having only a passing interest in "Counterpoint."
I DID just get an "aha!/lightbulb" moment when you mentioned "Counterpoint"; I had forgotten that Point/Counterpoint is a musical term, as well as a term of intellectual and/or debate brinkmanship (or is that "gamemanship"). So that would make sense for the music to be prominently featured, and well-used, in that particular ep.
Perhaps I will have to review a great mass of TNG, DS9 and VOY eps. to get a broader sense of the overall music direction under Berman.
Yeah. I do think it's misguided. I recently watched the pilot and a few first season episodes, and what I like about Voyager is the actors actually ARE more animated and quick tempered than TNG.
I think people tend to like the Star Trek characters the way kids love Barbie. They represent an ideal. Too often the producers would put a character with vague features in front of us and leave it to us to fill in the blanks. Do a few episodes where some incident from the past come up. But the producers really took it for granted. I'm glad the actors had more fun with their roles than Berman wanted them too.
They say writers AND actors help define a role in TV shows. After some episodes, they see what works, how the actors used a line of dialogue and so on. In Star Trek, it got to be such a mass produced product, maybe Berman lost sight of that.
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...the cool thing is, sometimes things conspire and a good show comes out of unusual (or plane bad) advice or direction. A lot of creative people are involved and they can sneak things in or do things their own way. All the Trek shows have probably benefited from such "subversive" actions.
I simply see that as a sign of the times.
I don't see many modern shows that uses music as over dramatically as TOS or the first years of TNG.
The trend was changing.
I personally see it as a nitpick because the musical score was never an issue toward Treks detriment. What I'm saying is, the numbers of folks watching Trek didn't dwindle due to it's music score nor has it ever been a top complaint.
