Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #917
Written 10/3/99, Revised 6/9/08
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Buy it... only if you are one of the lingering fans of the show and
seek the consistently sleek, but low-budget synthetic music heard
throughout earlier episodes of the series' three-year run.
Avoid it... if you expect the episodic scores to offer the same
heroic and optimistic spirit of the strong title music for the show,
which realistically isn't worth the price of the album alone.
Seven Days: (Scott Gilman) For three seasons from
1998 to 2001, "Seven Days" was an Earth-bound science fiction
alternative to the "Star Trek" series on Paramount's UPN channel. It
proposed that alien technology found at a crash site in Nevada could be
used by the American government to send a man back seven days in time to
stop a catastrophic event from occurring. Given a limited supply of
alien fuel, each mission had to merit careful planning and execution.
Over the course of the first two seasons, credible storylines did just
that, though as the show neared the end of its 66 overall episodes in
the third season, a infusion of unnecessary humor into the scripts
caused "Seven Days" to lose its traction. One of the greatest ironies of
the show was that, after several years of conjuring terrorist plots to
foil, its demise came just prior to September 2001. The show's placement
in UPN's schedule often put it before or after the immensely popular
"Star Trek: Voyager," perhaps extending enough interest in the opening
and closing music for "Seven Days" to make a 1999 album release for the
show possible. Composer Scott Gilman wrote the music for all 66 episodes
of the show, following up on his experience writing scores for
television mini-movies and series such as "Beverly Hills 90210" and
"Melrose Place." Given the popularity of science fiction on UPN at the
time, "Seven Days" was the height of Gilman's achievements in scoring;
his career would not include subsequent compositional work of
significance for the screen thereafter. Unlike the music for UPN's "Star
Trek" offerings, Gilman was alone responsible for performing the music
for "Seven Days," and he handled the time-crunching, low budget task
relatively well. His underscores for the episodes are completely
electronic, and his background in various rock venues drives many of the
rhythms he uses for the show. Unlike some of the scores being produced
by one-man scoring machines in the late 1990's, Gilman's music isn't as
simplistically annoying as the norm. Nor does it crash around without
direction. His drum loops, keyboarded strings, and occasional synthetic
cymbal accents and sound effects are generally consistent throughout
each episode.
Gilman's style prevails in such a manner that "Seven
Days" at least had the luxury of an unwavering musical ambience. At the
same time, though, the music really doesn't provide enough uniqueness to
warrant much excitement. The synth rhythms are often militaristic in
pace, with an abundance of abrupt cues that aren't long enough for
Gilman to develop an interesting motif. There is realistically no
character development in this music, and no recurring sub-motifs to pass
from show to show (at least none evident in the three episodes on this
album). The few standout tracks of enjoyable quality are those that tone
back the attitude and feature a softer attitude, including "The Wedding"
from the episode "Vows" and "One More Time" from the episode "Come
Again." Other than these more sensitive moments, the "Seven Days" isn't
a readily listenable package. The undeniable highlight of the album (and
for some, the show) is Gilman's main title. The first mix of the theme
on the CD features dialogue from "Seven Days" (including some heavy
female breathing), but the "End Title" mix concluding the album offers
the music alone. Unfortunately, despite the strength of the heroic and
optimistic, faux-brass title theme, Gilman only sparingly references it
in the transitional moments of the episodic scores (usually to bridge
the gap between the opening titles and the start of the episode). On the
whole, for a sci-fi television show, this music ranks merely average. It
obviously can't compare with the caliber of the "Star Trek" scores, and
it even lacks some of the creativity in personality that Christopher
Franke inserted into his concurrent, highly popular "Babylon 5" efforts.
On the other hand, Gilman's main titles for "Seven Days" elevates it
beyond the plethora of second-rate sci-fi music being cranked out at the
time. The album presentation consists of three early episodic scores and
does not include some of the softer variants on the title theme
eventually heard at the end of the show. There is an extraordinarily
creepy picture of Gilman on the album's packaging, depicting the man's
naked torso rising from a pit of fog. Hopefully, he didn't intend for
the album to function as a promo for more serious work. Only the
lingering fans of the show should investigate this product.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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