Subspace Rhapsody
More than six years ago, I wrote of Once More With Feeling, the magnificent season 6 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that,
it isn’t, in one sense, a standalone “musical episode”: it is a normal episode that just happens to have an oratorio and score.
A couple of entries later I wrote a long analysis of why I love the episode. You can find that here: Like There Were Only Three Walls
There have been other attempts at the same thing since then, but never, until this week, on Star Trek. On Thursday Star Trek Strange New Worlds season 2 episode 9, Subspace Rhapsody dropped to almost instant acclaim from most viewers. I watched it, rapt, then downloaded it and have watched it multiple times since.
Subspace Rhapsody takes cues from Once More With Feeling and makes a couple of respectful tips of the hat along the way. It is also structurally similar – an event causes the characters to reveal their emotional secrets in song while trying hard to work out what is happening and how to stop it. Both episodes move along the emotional and narrative arcs of the show. Subspace Rhapsody is also a normal episode that happens to have an oratorio and score, in which characters are forced to reveal, and confront, aspects of themselves they’d prefer to keep hidden, through the medium of song and dance. That’s a very ancient theatrical tradition and I have no problem with Star Trek or any other programme playing with the idea.
So how do they compare?
The question is in some respects unfair; they should each be taken on their own considerable merits for what they are. For the most part, the things I like about Once More With Feeling are present and correct in Subspace Rhapsody too, and I like the rearrangement of the Star Trek main theme for the modern equivalent of the Mike Sammes Singers. But they are, I think, different in important ways.
The most obvious difference is that they have very different musical palettes. Subspace Rhapsody is centred on modern stage musicals and musical theatre; a lot of the songs sound tonally similar. Once More With Feeling, by contrast, is closer to, dare I say it, a rock opera in feel, with a lot of melodic, rhythmic and tonal variation.
But the other difference – and the most important one – is one that took me a while to figure out. Subspace Rhapsody being Star Trek, builds – via some excellent set pieces and power ballads – to a big production number celebrating crew unity. The finale is like a big dish of cheese and corn with extra cheese and a side helping of more corn. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve watched it frequently and lapped it up, but it is still cheese and corn and it’s hard not to empathise with the Klingons singing
Your eternal torture is every Klingon’s dream.
Once More With Feeling, starts out with that view – what can’t we face if we’re together? Buffy sings. But the episode proceeds systematically to subvert and dissect that positivity until the cast conclude with an ensemble performance of Where Do We Go From Here?
Understand we’ll go hand in hand but we’ll walk alone in fear…
And that’s why Buffy still keeps it’s place at the top of the heap for me – it has a much deeper psychological sensibility that elevates it beyond mere drama and entertainment. Well, that and the fact that Emma Caulfield isn’t on Star Trek.
Here are some clips.
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