Incidentally..

Mike’s
Pith & Wind cont.
.. that it was the background music for the show that really gave her the creeps.

Now, the background music for Doctor Who is not to be confused with Ron Grainer’s
theme music, which is one of the all-time great TV series’ themes. No,
this is the background music, the music that is supposed to support
and enhance the action going down on the screen – not to mention help
the audience overlook the rather crappy effects and sets.
And I have to say, once this had been pointed out, I realised that I had been
enduring, rather than enjoying, or better still, not even noticing, the show’s
background music.
Actually, I have to confess that I have an issue with film and television soundtracks
per se, and I’m not sure that it’s simply because I’m
a musician that I’m so sensitive to it, although being aware of the mechanics
of creating the illusion does tend to make movie-going in general a bit of a
trial. But if a movie can dispense with background music altogether for whatever
reason, (i.e. good taste, no budget), it eliminates one potentially
enormous impediment to my enjoyment.
This might be a somewhat shocking confession to some, I imagine, especially
as I’ve had a song, (alright, THE song – sigh!), featured in
an Australian blockbuster quite recently, (Dirty Deeds), and got very
well paid for it, too. (You don’t think for a minute that I would turn
down good money over a principle, do you? Anyhow, the movie was a case in point
– I found the soundtrack thoroughly distracting).
All this is not to say I wouldn’t relish the opportunity to be commissioned
to write a soundtrack for something, even though it might run counter to my
tastes, not to mention a quite daunting technical challenge. I guess it probably
won’t happen now if it hasn’t already happened; the film biz is
a fairly closed shop at the best of times, and by all accounts, these are hardly
the best of times. Anyway, I’d probably score something so radical as
to be unusable, knowing me.
But, back to the new series of Doctor Who: I haven’t really seen enough
of it to be categorical, but it seems a bit try hard, as if it has to justify
being allocated an adequate budget. It tries to be snappy, it tries to be a
little bit naughty, it tries to be hip flip, it tries to be a bit satirical,
it tries to be gee whiz – but perhaps succeeds only in being typically
early 21st century. And I guess in that regard it’s like its 20th century
predecessors – it’s a bit hard to tell with all the gimmickry, bluster
and hype. We might be able to judge whether it actually has any inherent charm
when and if pay TV picks it up after a decent interval, which I s’pose
is what they’re counting on, afterall.