Grid Effect

While watching The Sopranos on Sunday and hearing a Doors song in the background, it dawned on me that all four dramatic series we deem appointment television utilize music in profoundly effective ways. Along with The Sopranos, The Wire, Friday Night Lights and Rescue Me (Starts back up a week from tomorrow on June 13th) use the music as almost an unnamed character and when it’s absent its effect is even more resonant.

I decided to discuss this after I stumbled onto this radio interview with Martin Bruestle, a producer on The Sopranos where he details the selection process for music in the series. They go over the significance of “Comfortably Numb”, their intentions to use “Thru and Thru” to conclude the second season and the meaning behind the Italian folklore song, “Ninna, Ninna”, at the end of the episode before memorial day weekend, “The Second Coming”. All three contain lyrics that pertain specifically to the heart of the characters and speak to their current state. In several ways, unless you are intimately familiar with them, what the music says about Tony’s, AJ’s, Carmela’s or Chrissy’s psyche might go undetected.

The Wire’s usage of music is handled much differently. Generally speaking, the only time you hear any music on this series it is played within the setting. Meaning it is audible to the audience and the characters, coming from a passing car or from someone’s radio. The only exception to this I can recall is the closing montage at the end of every season. The music in this series is used to establish setting rather than to resonate emotion and is a hybrid of classic rock, mowtown, R&B and rap/hip-hop (I’m still not clear what the difference is between these two is, but I can always distinguish them, go figure). But when it is absent, it’s eerily noticeable: Wallace’s death, Bodie’s death, Michael’s killing, Michael’s father’s death, Ziggy’s killing, Omar killing Stringer, etc. In virtually every other crime drama music overheads all pivotal plot points (usually a score, not pop music), this isn’t the case with David Simon, he uses music to create a realistic approximation of the urban environment, when the music is absent, something devastating/chilling is generally about to happen.

Rescue Me uses its music probably more than any of these series’, probably egregiously so. As opposed to The Wire, anytime something relevant happens to Tommy Gavin, you can almost que up the modern alternative rock, and much like The Wire, their method works for their series. The music on this series seems to be meticulously chosen and tends to consist of indie bands. Damn near every episode concludes with a montage encompassing every character before fading to credits where often something life-altering takes place for one of them (Usually Tommy).

Friday Night Lights doesn’t use music as liberally as Rescue Me but it is definitely more random. I guess the best way to paraphrase this is it works in the scenes where they use it and tends to when they do not, but occasionally are wondering where it is when they opt to leave it out. Other than climatic points in the series, they often use some sort of hard rock or rap in footbally scenes and soft rock in the pivotal relationship sequences. The two that come to mind specifically are Daniel Johnston’s, “Devil Town” (used twice actually, once before they play their first game without Jason Street, and secondly at the State Championship parade); and The Killers, “Read My Mind” as the town of Dillon sets up the makeshift football field in “Mud Bowl”.

Since all four series use music in remarkably different ways and all four methods are immensely effective, there isn’t necessarily a right way and a wrong way; just an appropriate way as it pertains to any given series. Music doesn’t make any of these narratives, but it certainly enhances the experience of following them and adds another element to already multi-faceted scenarios and characters.

Back tomorrow with links.

The only television I watched over the weekend (other than basketball, of course) were three rerun episodes of Rescue Me from the series’ innagural season. After watching said three episodes, I can categorically say that all rape/non-rape scenes aside, this show was much better in execution in its debut.

It had drama (Colleen getting into a potentially fatal car accident, Franco finding out he has a five year old daughter), comedy (”I told you not to spend that money so quickly, haven’t you ever seen Goodfellas?”) and several slowly unraveling plotlines. As opposed to this most recent season, in which the degree of tragedy that Tommy was burdened with (his son dies, his brother and ex-wife are sleeping together, said brother is gunned down, Lenny Clarke is in prison, chief has a heart attack, one of his best friends dies, the list goes on) bordered on comedic and unbelievable rather than nuanced and realistic. A lot of it just seemed akin to manufactured drama.

Which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy what I watched, this was the first time I have rewatched the first season, and everything in season three was much more gripping after watching a few episodes from season one (Keela was introduced in those three episodes, seeing Connor get into trouble, Probie getting physically assaulted by a swingers couple, Lieu’s ongoing marital problems, chief’s homophobia, etc.). I am simply pointing out that everything seemed organic in the first season, whereas now it can occasionally come off as lacking authenticity.

Season three did have its moments, regardless of how few and far between they may have been. Dennis Leary’s bar scene (probably solely responsible for his emmy nomination), Charles Durden’s funeral scene and the homage to the Kennedy’s with the hearing impaired sister just to name a few.

But then there was the downside, the love square between Tommy, Janet, Johnny and Marisa Tomei (cannot remember her characters name, my apologies) and the never ending plethora of casual sex partners Tommy had. To contrast this with what I saw in the three episodes of the first season, Tommy was trying to sabotage his ex wife’s (Janet) relationship while hoping to unveil the name of the girl he had been sleeping with whom he met at a bar. Much better storytelling in the latter.

And what was the most underwhelming aspect of last season? The ending. That bullshit non-cliffhanger that left Tommy and Shiela in a burning beach house. We all know Tommy Gavin is not going to die, at the rate this series is going they’ll probably open up with him dreaming about his own funeral or something. Shiela, on the other hand, could quite possibly meet her maker. And if that means Tommy would be the surrogate father to her kid, then all the better. That kid is damn funny.

I am in no way, shape or form, ready to bail on this series. I understand several female viewers did after the infamous Tommy-Janet scene, and I can agree that the series at large has a, ummm, unique method of characterizing women on this series. As in virtually all of them are portrayed negatively (with the exception of Laura, Diane Farr’s character that left at the end of season two), so I can understand some of the backlash. But by and large the women on this series are peripheral characters, Susan Sarandon’s character was a plot device, much like the guy who attempted to rape Probie in the first season, I don’t think there is anything particularly misogynistic about that, its just that there is only so much available camera time and the show is ultimately about the firehouse. Regrettably, some misogyny should be expected within this environment but it doesn’t necessarily mean the series creators are chauvinists themselves.

Needless to say, season one was a great reminder of why I loved this series in its debut and was a nice precursor to get ready for the fourth season scheduled to start in June. Instead of going into it with pre-set notions about illicit, borderline incestual love affairs and an absurd amount of forced dramatics, I can hark back to a time when this series was as good as anything on basic cable.