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Star Trek: Enterprise: (Dennis McCarthy) While
changing its direction in 2001, the "Star Trek" franchise still had
hopes of running strong, maintaining the momentum that its three
television series and four feature films of the 1990's had carried. The
last of the 24th Century shows, "Star Trek: Voyager," ended just in time
for Paramount to take the series back into the past for a total
rebooting of the concept with new faces and sounds. Some fans of the
seemingly ageless franchise, despite a looming feature film that was a
year late in production (
Star Trek: Nemesis), lost interest in
the subject when "Enterprise" was given the reigns in late 2001. With
only the one show sustaining the franchise in the absence of a strong
film series at the time, however, "Enterprise" (which attempted to drop
"Star Trek" from its title for no good apparent reason) was all there
existed for fans of Gene Roddenberry's concepts. The show initially
garnered critical success, with reasonable fan response as well, though
"Enterprise" became the first "Star Trek" series since the 1960's
original to be prematurely cancelled before the standard seven-year run
of its peers. Like the other shows, though, an album of the pilot music
for the 2001 series was released right away, taking advantage of one of
the more controversial aspects of the production. The legacy of the
music of "Star Trek" understandably caused a demanding standard of
quality for that music, even in the television shows. While Jerry
Goldsmith's Emmy Award-winning theme for "Voyager" remained popular long
after the end of the show, the music for "Enterprise" did not enjoy the
same level of acclaim at any time in its shortened run. Much news was
generated by the decision of "Enterprise"'s producers to attract a more
pop-oriented audience for the show by dumping the usual orchestral title
theme. Despite those producers' continuous attempts to explain their
reasons for the use of the pop song in a traditionally orchestral
setting, a flight from the norm that underscores a larger reason for
irritation with score collectors in general since the mid-1990's, many
hardcore fans of the series immediately rejected the song.
At the launching of "Enterprise" in 2001, the song was
even a mockery in some circles, with fans claiming to hit the mute
button on their television whenever the credits for the show began. The
song itself wasn't really new, of course, which was part of the problem.
Its writer, Diane Warren, while having proven herself capable of
creating several successful movie songs, had her own habitual
detractors, and although British tenor Russell Watson had been well
received in other genres at the time, his performance of the song here
won him no significantly greater popularity either. In short, the use of
"Where My Heart Will Take Me" for a "Star Trek" show simply didn't work
for most fans, for several reasons. First, tradition exists for a
reason, and unless a
really good song had been chosen, perhaps
with both pop and orchestral instrumentation, the idea was a difficult
prospect to begin with. Second, the song (despite its lyrics) doesn't
embody any of the characters. When you watch a few episodes of the show,
you don't get the impression of arrogance or confidence that the tone of
the song would seem to suggest. Third, the scores of the episodes have
nothing to do with the tone of song, which is a considerable problem.
The title piece simply can't stand alone without reference, regardless
of whatever half-hearted attempts were made to integrate the melody into
the orchestral narrative. Fourth, the primary composer for the series,
Dennis McCarthy, uses a completely different musical identity for all
other parts of the show. Overall, the song was nothing less than a flop,
and despite some talk that the producers would eventually change it out
in subsequent seasons, that action was never taken. This stubborn
position by the producers was especially disappointing given that other
shows, including "Andromeda" in its second season, had already corrected
their own title music problems. Some listeners have argued through the
years that "Where My Heart Will Take Me" is nowhere nearly as terrible
as it could have been, and that is a valid point. For many in the
mainstream, the song will be quite attractive. But it's simply not a
viable match for the circumstances of this particular franchise.
The role of composer Dennis McCarthy in the history of
the franchise was a vital one. In addition to his (underachieving)
composition of the score for the seventh feature film,
Star Trek:
Generations, McCarthy was a staple in the recording of scores for
both "The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine" series. Ironically, his
work for "Enterprise" was less restrained than any of his previous
television scores for the franchise. At a time when the title song of
the show was taking the concept further from its roots, McCarthy was
finally allowed to make much more extensive use of thematic material in
the actual episodic music (formerly a taboo in the previous shows). His
theme for Captain Archer is an adequate adaptation of the Warren melody,
if not faintly elegant in a down-to-earth kind of way. The references to
this theme throughout the first dozen episodes alone created a better
consistency in the orchestral material than in the beginning of the
previous shows. McCarthy does a few other things that could be
considered positive or negative, depending on your opinion of his work.
He uses an often subdued, passive, and wishy-washy string and brass
style that never quite explodes with the same level of intensity as a
feature film score. He continues to use a harmonica, which rightfully
drives some people up a wall (something he had been doing since early
"The Next Generation" episodes). His anonymous, slightly dissonant
material for the purpose of tension (as in "Temporal Battle") is
underwhelming at best, and it is this kind of mundane personality that
diminishes his music greatly. He has a method of changing key to signify
scene changes (heard extensively in "Deep Space Nine"), and that
procedural tactic was beginning to wear thin in its lack of originality.
His own pop-informed version of the title theme for the captain in
"Archer's Theme" seems a bit token. On the other hand, to his credit,
McCarthy interprets both a fragment of Alexander Courage's "Original
Series" theme and his own theme from
Star Trek: Generations into
the "New Horizons" cue, and he also inserts some of the grinding,
synthesized sounds from Goldsmith's original movie score into the
Klingon chase scene at the start of the pilot episode.
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On the whole, the music for "Enterprise" takes a few
small steps forward, but also some giant leaps backwards for the
franchise. There are a handful of action cues (led by "Phaser Fight,"
which references Goldsmith, too) that reach beyond his usual tepid
scoring for these episodes; this may or may not be due to the fact that
score was recorded midday on September 11th, 2001. But the fact remains
that despite all the hype about going in a new direction with the music,
the title song fails to set a strong, popular standard, and the
orchestral underscores are still all too familiar to be considered
refreshingly new. Perhaps the orchestral scores should have been dumped
all together and replaced with the intended, popified coolness of the
song, inserting pre-recorded performances by Watson at regular
intervals. As it would stand, though, the music for "Enterprise" is one
giant contradiction that has failed in what the producers set out to
accomplish. Other composers (including some from the mainstream)
produced much finer scores for this series in later years. The 2002
album includes, like those that came out for the many series before it,
the score for the pilot episode and a few versions of the title song.
With Watson's involvement, the label switches from the familiar, though
sputtering (and actually dying) GNP Crescendo to the more mainstream and
thriving Decca/Universal. Despite a whole year of episodes long
finished, the packaging of the album is still restrained to the
extremely uninteresting early promo shots of the principle actors
standing around in those silly blue jumpsuits. Sound quality is also a
major concern. The remix of the title song for the first track features
spectacular resonance in sound, but all of the score and the actual
television-version of the song at the end of the product suffer from a
muted quality that is significantly detrimental to the listening
experience. The ninth track, "Grappled," is especially muffled. This has
been a problem with these episodic albums in the past, but one would
think that 2002 mixing techniques (and the resources at Universal
available for an album presentation remix) could make McCarthy's
undersized orchestra sound considerably better than it does on this
product. As it stands, the song is out of place, the score is
contradictory, and the sound quality is questionable. What were they
thinking?
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The insert includes bland artwork, but also a note from the composer about
recording the score on September 11th, 2001.
