By Chris Snellgrove | Published
When Star Trek: Strange new worlds aired its musical episode “Subspace Rhapsody”, it was impossible for most fans of the genre not to compare it to Buffy the Vampire SlayerThe musical masterpiece episode of “Once More With Feeling”. That Buffy The episode managed to combine incredibly catchy earworm tunes with a character-driven plot, making it the benchmark for musical episodes. If we’re being honest, the Star Trek musical episode is subpar BuffyIt’s in almost every way except one: “Subspace Rhapsody” highlights the entire main cast while “Once More With Feeling” saw two cast members refusing to sing.
Buffy’s musical faux pas
Long before the Star Trek musical episode aired, Buffy“Once More With Feeling” gave almost all of its leads their own songs. Buffy channels pop stars as she sings about existentialism, Giles does a power ballad about holding her back, Spike becomes a rockstar to sing about his mixed feelings towards the Slayer, and so on. However, Hannigan’s Willow does not have any songs of its own. In fact, she only has two musical lines, including the hilariously meta lyric: “I think this line is mostly filler.”
As for why Willow isn’t featured prominently in the musical’s tunes, showrunner Joss Whedon says Hannigan “begged me on my knees to make her sing as little as possible.” He obliged, which is why Tara sings everything in their totally romantic song “Under Your Spell.” Meanwhile, the only other lead actress not singing is Michelle Trachtenberg, as she had requested to use her ballet training and do a dance sequence instead.
Star Trek’s musical masterstroke
As we discussed previously, the musical episode of Star Trek pales in comparison to BuffyIt is in many ways. The songs aren’t as catchy, the emotional stakes aren’t as high, and some plot points sometimes fall flat. However, there is exactly one area in which Star Trek surpasses Buffy in the musical department: all the main actors sing. Granted, some voices are louder than others, but it’s just impressive that no one backed down, especially since Trek had never done a musical and expectations were going to be incredibly high.
After Star Trek: Strange New Worlds brought us the ambitious and flawed “Subspace Rhapsody,” showrunners Henry Alonso Myers and Akiva Goldsman gave an interview with Variety where they discussed their own surprise that the entire cast was up for singing. According to Goldsman, “we ended up with an absurdly good cast” and he expected “one dud in the group” who couldn’t or wouldn’t sing. Instead, he concluded that “it was as if they had all secretly coveted the idea of a musical their whole lives”, making filming this episode all the easier.
Spock sings
It also helped that these Star Trek showrunners had the opposite problem that BuffyThe producers had done it. Instead of discovering someone like Hannigan who wasn’t really comfortable singing on screen, they discovered that one of their biggest stars was secretly a musical maestro. Speaking of Spock actor Ethan Peck, Goldsman said, “I didn’t know Ethan could sing until I said, ‘Holy shit, Ethan can sing!’ Amusingly, he noted that his reaction is basically the same as that of audiences watching the famous Vulcan tunes for the first time: “You’re like, ‘Wait, Spock is singing now?’
As it stands, Star Trek’s first musical episode isn’t as beloved as Buffyand for good reason. Ultimately, the songs sung by the Enterprise crew just aren’t as catchy or fun as those sung by Sunnydale’s Scooby Gang. However, Strange new worlds can boast that all its main actors came together to sing their hearts out during Buffy kept two of its actors from stepping into the spotlight (albeit at their own request). And it’s something that deserves to be sung once again, with emotion. Even if these feelings are, as Spock would remind us, completely illogical.
Source: Variety
