The Song Remains the Same...or Not

By: Jason Davis
Date: Monday, July 17, 2006

Imagine popping CASABLANCA into your DVD player. When Ilsa Lund utters the immortal line "Play it, Sam. Play "As Time Goes By," Sam obligingly pounds the keys of his piano producing a generic piece of 40s era music completely devoid of the requested song's charm and relevance. As any admirer of the John Hughes oeuvre will attest, that's exactly the sort of thing that happened for years when one purchased a videocassette of WEIRD SCIENCE. Sure, the titular theme by Oingo Boingo was in tact, but it was slathered all over the soundtrack filling the holes left by other songs Universal Home Video had opted not to license for home video release. Nowadays, you can get WEIRD SCIENCE and other similarly afflicted pop music festooned theatrical treats in their pristine form, but it's one thing for a studio to fork over the cash for a handful of songs across a two-hour movieit's quite another to fling that kind of dough at a season of episodes.

I don't know about you, but there are certain things that stick in my mind about shows I've watched over the years. One of the things that really lodges in my memory is the particularly poignant use of music to color the emotion of a critical scene. Take, for instance, the penultimate moments of the QUANTUM LEAP episode "M.I.A." The segment, which concluded LEAP's second season, was a definite highlight of the series. Leaping into an undercover cop in 1969, Dr. Sam Beckett finds himself in a bit of a conundrum. His holographic guide, Al Calavicci, seems obsessed with persuading a young woman named Beth from meeting a lawyer on the other side of town while Sam is certain that his leap is meant to alter some other facet of history. As the story unfolds, Sam deduces that Al is trying to avert a tragedy in his own personal pastan action forbidden by Project Quantum Leap's charter. It seems that Beth was Al's first wife (by the show's "present day" date of 1995, he'd had five). When he was declared M.I.A. in Vietnam, Beth married another man only to break Al's heart when he was repatriated years later.


What does all this have to do with altering music on DVD releases, you ask? I'll tell you! After Sam refuses to use his position in the past for Al's personal gain, the holographic observer gets to spend one last moment with his long lost wife as she dances alone to her favorite song: Ray Charles' "Georgia on My Mind." The scene is absolutely heart-breaking as the invisible and intangible Al moves along side his wife, desperate to let her know he'll be home soon but separated by a quarter of a century. As she dances, Beth "knows" that Al is gone and accepts that she must move on with her life. For me, it's one of the best moments in the series. When Universal released the abbreviated first season of the series on DVD, I breathed a sigh of relief. All the period music was intactthe plague of replacements had missed Sam and Al! Imagine the horror, then, when season two hit shelves and Charles' masterpiece was replaced with what former TV Wasteland columnist David Wharton referred to as "wildly inappropriate, emotionally dissonant" rubbish. Not only had Universal pulled a bait and switch (I use the phrase because they didn't bother to note the alterations on the package and season one had been unaffected), but whoever had combed the selection of library tracks available for use on DVD had completely misjudged the cue for this sequence providing an upbeat big band piece that utterly misses the emotional weight of the scene. Did I mention that Beth mentions the song by name during the episode?

Now, I understand that economic constraints require that some music must sometimes be sacrificed to the altar of commerce. Surely, shows like THE WONDER YEARS and WKRP IN CINCINATTI must be copyright nightmares. Sony has taken pains to afford the executive producer of DAWSON'S CREEK to select tracks appropriate for that show's DVD release (though the Paula Cole-sung theme song was a casualty of later releases). Paramount has made the thoughtful decision to include the original themes for NUMB3RS and JOAN OF ARCADIA on at least one episode in each set while replacing the rest with less expensive international alternatives. When the copyright holders refused permission for the use of "Do You Want to Know a Secret?" by the Beatles on DOCTOR WHO's "Remembrance of the Daleks," the conscientious guys of the DOCTOR WHO Restoration Team substituted the same song performed by the George Martin produced Billy J. Kramer with the Dakotas. One could hardly ask for a better scenario than that. In fact, it begs the question as to why a cover of the state song of Georgia, sung in a vaguely similar style could not be acquired for use in "M.I.A." I might have even settled for Michael Bolton's rendition...

That said, it seems like special consideration should be given to certain songs that play an important emotional role in a given series. WISEGUY famously set the climax of its first story arc against the Moody Blues song "Nights in White Satin" to create a wonderfully melancholy finale to life of mobster Sonny Steelgrave. The song is absent from the DVD. Luckily, the recent release of DOCTOR WHO's first series finds Britney Spears and Soft Cell satirically in place for "The End of the World." Noting that the labels of the 45 rpm records from which the songs are sourced appear in vision, I don't half wonder that Russell T. Davies featured them just to ensure the tracks made the DVDs. LIFE ON MARS, a series that takes its very title from a David Bowie song and uses 1970s music to create an audio landscape for its lost in time lead will soon be hitting US screens courtesy of BBC America. I urge everyone to watch the broadcast as the superlative soundtrack will doubtlessly be damaged in the translation to disc. So, at the end of the day, I'm left with a battered 16-year old videotape of "M.I.A." Eventually, I'll transfer it to DVD, but until then, the legitimately released DVD remains sheathed on the shelf 'cause I've got "Georgia on My Mind."


E-mail your comments to wastelandjason@hotmail.com.
MONDAY, JULY 17


SAVED (10 PM PST, TNT) "Cowboys and Independents" Is it just me, or does this title sound vaguely like it would have made a good Firefly episode?
TUESDAY, JULY 18


EUREKA (9 PM PST, Sci Fi Channel) Pilot Parts 1 & 2 I must admit the Sci Fi Channel's ad campaign has me thoroughly intrigued. A small town populated by the world's brightest scientists engaged in top-secret research sounds like an engine for some really cool stories. Add the casting of Matt Frewer and Erica Cerra, and you've pretty much guaranteed my attention.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 19


NIGHTMARES AND DREAMSCAPES (9 PM PST, TNT) "Umney's Last Case" & "End of the Whole Mess" THE 4400's Jackie McKenzie guest stars alongside TNT golden boy William H. Macy for the first story while Henry Thomas and Ron Livingston feature in the second. By the way, anyone catch the Zuni fetish doll last week?

BLADE (10 PM PST, SPIKE TV) "Bloodlines" Blade finds himself at the mercy of a gang of vampires he originally turned.

HUSTLE (10 PM PST, AMC) Episode 16 Seemingly unbeknownst to your humble columnist, AMC has snuck the third season of this excellent series onto the air. Not only that, but DVDs of the first series are soon to hit region one from BBC Home Video.
THURSDAY, JULY 20


HEX (10 PM PST, BBC America) "Death Takes the Mother" Cassie tries to steal her baby back from Azazeal in what I've recently learned is this show's final season. I guess plans for season three just didn't work out. You know, it used to be that a second season meant you'd probably run for years, but now it seems just has hard to get that third year as it's always been to score a second.
FRIDAY, JULY 21

MONK (9 PM PST, USA) "Mr. Monk and the Big Game" Monk investigates the murder of a basketball coach.

STARGATE: SG-1 (9 PM PST, Sci Fi Channel) "Morpheus" After officially claiming the title of the longest US SF series in history last week, SG-1 continues to be invigorated by the lovely injection of FARSCAPE DNA that so enlivened things last year. Claudia BlackI love you!

PSYCHE (10 PM PST, USA) "Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Piece" Shawn and Gus attempt to recover a stolen ring at a posh wedding.

STARGATE: ATLANTIS (10 PM PST, Sci Fi Channel) "Misbegotten" ENTERPRISE's Connor Trinneer guest stars.
SATURDAY, JULY 22
Imagine the title of this column being sung to the tune of the Who's "Baba O'Riley" and you will understand the dearth of fresh programming tonight...if only some of Sunday's bounty could spill backward in time...
SUNDAY, JULY 23


THE 4400 (9 PM PST, USA) "Blink" The problem with this column's deadline is that I'm often working over a week ahead when it comes to Sunday and I could well do with Maia's precognitive powers when it comes to divining the plot of these distant episodes.

DEADWOOD (9 PM PST, HBO) "Unauthorized Cinnamon" Bullock makes a proposal to resolve the camp's difficulties with Hearst while the ill health of Mr. Chesterton (charmingly portrayed by dear Audrey Morris) delays Langrishe's plans for the theatre.

THE DEAD ZONE (10 PM PST, USA) "Lotto Fever" You just can't please some people. Johnny Smith learns that lesson when he helps a man win the lottery and then must deal with the man's post-winning complaints.

BROTHERHOOD (10PM PST, Showtime) "Matthew 13:57" The pilot of this series quite impressed me, but with Showtime, I've learned not to get too attached... "And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house." At least they've ample episode titles if the show does have a long life...

2006 Jason Davis