Reasons for the TV Season
After a hiatus from TV (blogging does take its toll I suppose), I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things. I’m catching up on the Showtime gem Weeds. I just sat through the first four episodes of Entourage and am now convinced I can get through all it. Why didn’t I catch them in their initial runs? Well, I hate sitting down for these things at the times I’m supposed to….I like to binge on them and DVD and TiVo only encourages this behavior.
But there will be two shows that I will assuredly watch…in their programmed time slots. They both are in their third seasons and they are both 9pm shows, and they both debuting the first week of October.
Yeah, I agree with everyone’s qualms about Season 2 of Lost. It was frustrating as hell. And making the schedule irregularly shuffle between rerun and repeat just didn’t help, especially for something this serialized. The “Previously On Lost” segments were required viewing just to keep track, even if what they decided to preview often gave away the crux of the episode.
In any event, I gritted my teeth and was even treated to the great episode surrounding Eko, the Nigerian priest, which came the closest to geniune pathos and perspective on the whole question of fate and destiny. I’m glad that script was nominated for an Emmy. And the final episode of season two left me with a few surprises that pleased me.
But disregarding the story, the original music of Michael Giacchino will keep attracting me. His concept of scoring it with a string orchestra and other acoustic sounds is really old school Bernard Herrmann type stuff, but the way it is skillfully used makes it feel new and fresh.
So how come the main title theme isn’t a great Herrmann-esque theme? Well, apparently J.J. Abrams, creator of the series and major director, wrote the main title music, so I suppose you should forgive it its effective but essentially “sound fx” simplicity.
Season 3 begins Oct. 4, 9 pm on ABC.
Lost Main Title Theme (mp3) - J. J. Abrams Buy
Credit Where Credit is Due (mp3) - Michael Giacchino
I already blogged this earlier, but it doesn’t make me any less excited about this show. I seriously think it is the best show on TV (note that I haven’t really seen any of The Wire yet). Moreover, Battlestar Galactica has that added element of being science fiction…in other words it is a socially acceptable way of satisfying deeply entrenched geek pangs. Anything that makes robots and space ships sexy, hip, and contemporary is fine by me.
It’s also good to know that the music is in the hands of Bear McCreary, who has created a distinctive sound world for the show. It is a mix of Philip Glass classicism with Middle Eastern melismatic instruments and pulsating rhythms. It fits in nicely with the ethnic profile of the show, which has no problem with casting all skin color types in new ways (the future apparently doesn’t label people by the continent their ancestors were from). Some credit should go to Richard Gibbs, who scored the BSG miniseries and set the tone for what was to come. Bear just took it to another level.
Season 3 begins Oct. 6, 9pm on the Sci Fi Channel.
Battlestar Galactica Main Title (mp3) - Bear McCreary Buy
A Promise to Return (mp3) - Bear McCreary
