In a recent episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Mr. Spock performs a mind meld. The scene starts as many mind meld scenes have before it, with a slow, gradual build-up of quiet anticipation as Spock mutters, “My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts.” It’s a tense scene, but something felt missing while I was watching it: Music.
To be clear, there is music in the scene. It is standard “suspense” music, with high strings being sustained over long, Hans Zimmer-esque bass notes. The music isn’t bad. It’s unobtrusive, but it does its job. Still, even a mind meld scene in 2025 would be enhanced if we heard some notes of Spock’s musical theme, composed by Gerald Fried and used throughout the original series.
Music is a powerful tool in an audio-visual medium like television. Just a few notes can cue audiences to know which characters are in a scene and even what they are doing. Unfortunately, music for TV is often fairly generic and deprioritized compared to other aspects of the production. Given all of the small nods Strange New Worlds makes to the past, though, its music should do the same.
Alexander Courage’s main theme to Star Trek is obviously the most iconic music in the entire franchise, and it continues to be used extensively in current productions. That theme is not the only iconic music from TOS, however. Courage and other composers, like Sol Kaplan, Jerry Fielding, or the aforementioned Gerald Fried, all contributed iconic music and motifs to the series.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is often walking a tightrope. On the one hand, it is trying to bring in new viewers and be a contemporary TV series for the 2020s. On the other hand, it leans heavily on preexisting characters, designs, plots, and lore from the original Star Trek. Things are not always executed faithfully, but some effort is made.
With music, Strange New Worlds could give itself a safety net. Certainly, some musical themes from TOS, like Fried’s battle music from “Amok Time,” have been parodied to death, but others, like his theme for Spock, just feel like they’re part of the aural DNA of Star Trek. Incorporating that in SNW could enrich the series and make it feel like it really is telling part of the same story.
If Strange New Worlds composer Nami Melumad wanted to, she could occasionally incorporate references to these earlier themes. They would not need to be 1-for-1 recreations. After all, tastes for instrumentation and style in TV music have changed significantly in the past 6 decades. Still, having that recognizable music would help SNW mesh more with the spirit of the original series.
Of course, past Star Trek shows, like The Next Generation, often eschewed direct musical references to TOS, as they strove to set themselves apart. Strange New Worlds seems to be doing the opposite, and as the writers make more and more allusions to the original series, it would be wonderful if the music would also embrace this legacy.