Alex Kurtzman really needs to make a Star Trek musical episode happen!
Dissension in the ranks? Nah, just a friendly disagreement. While Chad Porto thinks a musical Star Trek episode is a bad idea, I think it has the potential to be not only great but brilliant.
To paraphrase Captain Spock in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Chad proceeds from a false assumption. He seems to equate “musical” with “silly.”
Is some musical theater silly? Sure.
But musical theater’s a genre. And like other genres—including science fiction—it’s more than capable of being serious as well as silly, profound as well as playful. Sometimes it can even be both, and a lot more, all at the same time.
Granted, we don’t usually see people suddenly break into song and dance in real life. (Maybe we’re just hanging around the wrong people!)
But the conventions of a musical aren’t inherently more or less silly than any other genre’s conventions.
Besides, if any TV franchise deserves a first-rate musical episode, Star Trek does.
Here are five reasons why.
# 1 – A Star Trek musical episode could really slay ‘em
To again paraphrase Captain Spock (this time from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country), Chad must have faith the franchise will unfold as it must! And maybe that “must” includes a musical episode.
Chad cites Psych’s musical episode as evidence musical episodes are rarely any good. But he doesn’t mention the musical episode that sets the standard and inspires those who make other TV series, including Alex Kurtzman, want to try one in the first place: “Once More, with Feeling,” from season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
In the midst of the otherwise overwhelmingly bleak and grim slog that was BVtS’ penultimate year, “Once More, with Feeling”—in which a demon forces Sunnydale’s denizens to sing and dance their way through life on the Hellmouth—was and is a breathtakingly fresh, funny, and fiercely emotional exploration of its characters.
Writing for The Ringer, Miles Surrey and Kate Halliwell judge it “the best episode the series ever made.”
I enjoy Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard. But there’s no denying both these Star Trek shows know how to do bleak and grim. A well-done musical episode could be a wonderful way to shine more light into an otherwise dark plot arc.
Star Trek fans and TV critics alike might even remember such an episode as one of these series’ best for years to come, just as they still sing the praises of Buffy’s musical milestone.
# 2 – Star Trek has no shortage of in-universe ways to set up a musical episode
Unlike Buffy’s, the Star Trek universe generally lacks demons (DS9’s pah-wraiths being the exception that proves the rule). But any number of other factors could land Trek characters in a Broadway-style scenario.
As you-know-who was fond of saying, “there are always possibilities,” including:
- Aliens using illusion or mind control. This device is Star Trek’s birthright, dating all the way back to the Talosians in “The Cage.”
- A superbeing forcing characters to sing and dance for their amusement or as a test. Trelane. The Platonians (see the video above). Q—heck, we already know he’s coming to Picard’s second season!
- An alternate reality where song and dance are the only way to communicate. Just as the Tamarians in TNG’s “Darmok” spoke only in metaphor, maybe the inhabitants of some other strange new world only connect through show tunes. (Jazz hands at Tanagra, when the curtain fell!)
- An extraterrestrial virus or uncontrolled telepath causes erratic and self-revelatory behavior. Both of these established Trek tropes (viruses in “The Naked Now” and “The Naked Time,” telepathic trouble in “Sarek”) could also get the trick done.
- A malfunctioning holodeck. What if those pesky safety controls get disengaged again, and the only way out is to sing, dance, and act your way out?
Consider this: The late John M. Ford’s fan-favorite novel, How Much for Just the Planet? (Pocket Books, 1987), understood a Star Trek musical episode was by no means too much of a stretch.
In the book, the people of the planet Direidi use musical theater to determine whether the Federation or the Klingon Empire can make the best claim to developing their world.
As Ellen Cheeseman-Meyer wrote for a Tor.com re-read, the book could almost be characterized as “Glee in space.”
"The production numbers are apparently spontaneous and lavishly produced. But this comparison ignores the intricately crafted story that runs both through and beneath a surface layer of escalating chaos… However outrageous this particular story seems, it works the way Star Trek has always worked."
# 3 – A Star Trek musical episode could pay homage to the franchise’s past
In his piece, Chad claims a musical episode would be “stupidity” that would “sink [Star Trek’s] credibility to an all-time low.”
But, even as we saw on the previous slide, characters have been singing onscreen in Star Trek throughout its 55-year-history, and the franchise’s credibility is still more than intact.
Thankfully, no worries about singing prevailed during the original series’ first season.
Nichelle Nichols, who got her show biz start singing with Duke Ellington’s and Lionel Hampton’s bands, sang two songs that year in her role as Uhura.
You can watch the first in the video above (from “Charlie X”) and the second in the video below (from “The Conscience of the King”).
And even though I’ll grant you Uhura’s fan dance on Nimbus III is a cringeworthy lowlight of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, it might have at least sounded better had Nichols herself gotten to perform the song, as she believed she was going to be allowed to.
In Star Trek: The Next Generation, we know “dancing doctor” Beverly Crusher included musical theater in the repertoire she directed for the NCC-1701-D crew. Remember how she tried to recruit a reluctant Geordi LaForge to play Major General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance?
Geordi was reluctant to perform comic opera, but the EMH on Star Trek: Voyager wasn’t shy about singing the real, highbrow stuff.
The Doctor could even improvise new lyrics to classic opera themes to fit the situation!
All these characters and more singing on Star Trek—and yet the franchise continues to live long and prosper!
How threatening to its credibility could a one-off musical episode really be?
#4 – Arguably, Star Trek has already done a musical episode
“What?” you say. “No it hasn’t!” But it has!
The sixth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine introduced the holographic character of Vic Fontaine.
Played by Gidget’s Moondoggie himself, 1960s teen heartthrob and accomplished jazz crooner James Darren, Vic is a self-aware hologram who plays to crowds of DS9 crew and faux Las Vegas vacationers in packed holosuites.
Vic lends his golden pipes to several episodes in DS9’s lastl two seasons. (His rendition of “The Way You Look Tonight” in the series finale makes me misty just thinking about it.) But his first episode, “His Way” (the title’s a nice nod to Frank Sinatra’s classic hit), is really only a few measures short of being a full-fledged musical.
Like such Broadway shows as Mama Mia! or Movin’ Out, “His Way” features not new songs but pop standards.
We hear full performances of “You’re Nobody ‘til Somebody Loves You,” “Come Fly with Me” (twice!), “Fever” (in which Nana Visitor gets to strut her stuff as a torch singer), and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” We also even hear Sisko and Odo sing a few bars of “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.”
Five standards from the great American songbook in a 45-minute (sans commercials) show? Sure sounds like a Star Trek musical episode to me!
And as in any good Broadway book musical, these songs are more than ear candy. They advance the plot (Odo learns to play piano during the first “Come Fly with Me,” and confronts his feelings for Kira during “Fever”) and develop the show’s themes (the title alone of “You’re Nobody…” speaks volumes about Odo’s emotions).
What’s more, the DS9 creative team considered “His Way” a Star Trek musical episode.
At least, screenwriter Hans Beimler did.
In a 1998 interview with Cinefantastique quoted on the Memory Alpha wiki, Beimler says:
"I think of “His Way” as the first musical on Deep Space Nine. Musicals are very difficult to make work, and I know that because Ira and I did Fame together, the television series. It was a learning experience in terms of how difficult it is to tell a good story in a musical. When you hit it, it feels great, because it combines all the elements. There’s nothing like a musical to make it happen."
# 5 – A musical episode might be risky, but risk is Star Trek’s business
Beimler’s assessment of “His Way” brings us to the last—and, for my quatloos, the most compelling—reason Star Trek should mount an all-out, no-holds-barred musical episode.
It’s a reason no less an expert than James T. Kirk invoked when persuading his crew to undertake a difficult and dangerous mission in “Return to Tomorrow,” as you can see in the clip above.
In fact, to close, I’ll channel my best Shatner and paraphrase Captain Kirk this time… because…
"Because Chad is right—in pointing out the enormous danger potential in any contact with a genre of entertainment as fantastically advanced as musical theater. But I must point out—that the possibilities, the potential for character development and sheer entertainment and joy is equally great! Risk! Risk is Star Trek’s business. That’s what this franchise is all about!"
Sure, a Star Trek musical episode might turn out badly.
A Star Trek musical episode might feel contrived.
A Star Trek musical episode might even be seen, by some, as “silly.”
But since when have either Star Trek or its fans ever assumed the worst about what might be?
Bring on our Star Trek musical episode, Alex Kurtzman!
Do you think Star Trek should produce a musical episode? Let us know on Twitter, on Facebook, or in the comments whether you’re Team Chad or Team Mike on this question!