How A Star Trek Musical Episode Beats Buffy’s Feeling Once More

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 25 seconds ago

When Star Trek: Brave New Worlds aired its musical episode “Subspace Rhapsody,” it was impossible for most genre fans not to compare it to Buffy the Vampire Slayermusical masterpiece episode “Once More With Feeling.” That Buffy episode managed to combine wacky earring tunes with a character-driven plot, making it the gold standard for musical episodes. If we’re being honest, Star Trek’s musical episode is inferior Buffyalmost every way except one: “Subspace Rhapsody” features the entire main cast singing while “Once More With Feeling” had two cast members refusing to sing.

Buffy’s Musical Misstep

Long before the Star Trek musical episode hit the air, Buffy‘Once More With Feeling’ gave almost all of its leads their own songs. Buffy channels pop stars as she sings about existence, Giles does a power ballad about holding her back, Spike becomes a rock star to sing about his mixed feelings towards the Slayer, etc. However, Hannigan’s Willow has no songs of its own. In fact, she only has two musical lines, including the very funny metallic lyric, “I think this line’s mostly filler.”

As for why Willow doesn’t feature prominently in the musical’s tunes, showrunner Joss Whedon claims that Hannigan, “begged me on her knees to have her sing as little as possible.” She welcomed that request, which is why Tara sings it all in their utterly witchin’ romantic song “Under Your Spell.” Meanwhile, the only other main cast member who doesn’t sing is Michelle Trachtenbergas she has applied to use her ballet training and do a dance sequence instead.

Star Trek Musical Hit

As we mentioned before, Star Trek’s musical episode pales in comparison Buffy‘ in most ways. The songs aren’t as catchy, the emotional stakes aren’t as high, and some plot points sometimes fall flat. However, there is exactly one area where Star Trek outshines Buffy in the musical section: all of the main cast sings. Sure, some of the vocals are stronger than others, but it’s nothing short of impressive that no one backed up, especially considering Trek had never made a musical and the expectations were going to be crazy of high

After Star Trek: Brave New Worlds brought us the ambitiously ambitious “Subspace Rhapsody,” showrunners Henry Alonso Myers and Akiva Goldsman gave an interview with Variety where they discussed their own surprise that the entire cast was supposed to sing. According to Goldsman, “We ended up with a ridiculously good cast,” and he expected a “dud in the bunch” who either failed or didn’t sing. Instead, he concluded that “it’s as if they’ve all secretly craved the idea of ​​a musical all their lives,” making filming this episode much easier.

Spock Sings

It also helped those who show Star Trek that they have the opposite problem Buffyproducers had. Instead of discovering someone like Hannigan who wasn’t very comfortable with singing on screen, they discovered that one of their biggest stars was secretly a musical maestro. While discussing Spock actor Ethan Peck told Goldsman, “I didn’t know Ethan could sing until I went, ‘Holy f***, Ethan can sing!’ Hilariously, he noted that his reaction was basically the same as audiences watching the famous Vulcan tunes bolt out for the first time: “You’re like, ‘Wait, Spock’s singing now?’

As it stands, Star Trek’s first musical episode isn’t quite as beloved as Buffyand for good reason. At the end of the day, the songs sung by the Enterprise crew aren’t as catchy or fun as those sung by the Scooby Gang from Sunnydale. However, Brave New Worlds can boast that all of its leading actors stepped up to sing their hearts out while Buffy keeping two of his actors from stepping into the spotlight (albeit at their own request). And that is something worth singing about once again, with feeling. Even if those feelings are, as Spock would remind us, completely irrational.

Source: Variety