• The big news for the week is that Jericho has actually been picked back up by CBS! The “nuts campaign” actually worked. It’s so rare for these fan campaigns to work, particularly AFTER a show has been officially not picked up by the upfront announcements. Even more interesting is that the official announcement of the (recently rumored) pickup came in the form of a letter from CBS network president, Nina Tassler, to the fans directly. Her fanboy points just went up a staggering amount. Take that, Dawn Ostroff. I’m extremely happy that the show has been picked back up, and still have trouble convincing myself to believe it. Thankfully, this show won’t have been left as a show canceled right at the point of a major cliffhanger. So, thank you CBS, for actually listening to your viewers. Yes, we know that you have to justify this with an audience increase, and us fans will try to validate your renewal of the show by doing what we can to get those numbers up. Perhaps you won’t make such a staggeringly boneheaded mistake as you did with that gaping hiatus you put the show on for months (and then acted all shocked with the ratings bottomed out of the show when it eventually returned). Sometimes, I just don’t get the programming choices that the major networks make. I mean, I’d understand things done for their own greedy interest, but moves like that don’t make sense for anyone involved.
• Along with that renewal news, there’s official word on the details for the season 1 DVD set for Jericho.
• Hey, what’s this, I posted a new “top list” entry on the site? Yup, that’s something else I’m trying to kick back in gear. Hopefully, more of those to come.
• My review for Gracie should show up at some point tomorrow, btw.
• You know, I really don’t care if this is a true story or not (and I’d be pretty sure it is). That’s one of the funniest things I’ve heard in a while. For that to have been mistaken that way in LA, of all places, is too funny.
• Looks like Atlantis might manage a launch on Friday. Here’s hoping for a glitch-free, successful launch. Atlantis is the shuttle that I got to see launch while down in Florida back in 2001 for mission STS-98.
• A nice interview with Summer Glau about her upcoming Sarah Conner Chronicles role.
• Here’s a funny write-up about the recent NASA chief press comment science nerd controvery
• Try out this cool and surreal “picture”
• How NOT to use a PowerPoint
• The Onion’s hilarious new revelation about the new Harry Potter book

This is a list of the shows/composers, currently in production, that feature my favorite music scoring work.

1. Battlestar Galactica - Bear McCreary
   Bear McCreary, who was the secondary composer for the Battlestar mini-series (and was all of 23 years old at the time), landed himself a gig that surely must have him pinching himself for such good fortune. Primary composer Richard Gibbs decided to leave the show after the mini-series was picked up as a series and worked briefly on the first handful of episodes while transitioning the work to McCreary. The producers put a lot of faith in McCreary, who was not only very young to be taking on such a high profile task, but was doing scoring unlike anything that had been done on TV before. With an approach that is NOTHING like Stu Phillips’ fantastic work on the 1978 original (despite the occasional wink towards Phillips’ original theme - used in the new show as a “Colonial Anthem”), McCreary constantly turns the approach to scoring television (or film for that matter) on its head. Blending something of a world-mix with all manner of thematic and chamber orchestra textures, ethereal beauty and wildly unrestrained percussion, his work is absolutely some of the best scoring TV has seen in a very long time, in my opinion. There have been score CD releases for each season (with the 3rd season score pending in the next month or two). Like almost everything about this utterly fantastic series, it takes a wildly different approach from the original source material inspiration and works amazingly, against all odds.
2. Doctor Who - Murray Gold
   Resurrected from the ashes, into a major success, Doctor Who is back with style. I was a fan ever since childhood, so I was anxious when I heard about the rebirth of the venerable series (now 44 years old). As I watched the first episode, it took a bit for me to adjust to Murray Gold’s scoring approach. It didn’t take me too long to figure out that he was doing amazing work. Ranging from a bit of rock-n-roll to amazing beauty and staggering action cues, he breathes an incredible amount of life, heart and action into the energetic adventure series. So great is his music, it was featured in a wonderful concert performance last fall for an annual charity drive that the Doctor Who production supports. Gold’s scoring is at its best when it breaks the mold and goes in a direction nobody expects. Case in point is his “Doomsday” theme - one of my favorite music cues written for either film or TV in years. Gold also contributes the occasional song to the series, which are also very good. His work from the first 2 years on the revived series is featured on a fantastic CD.
3. Lost - Michael Giacchino
   Though his work on Lost doesn’t have the freedom to be as aggressive as his stunning work on JJ Abrams’ previous series, Alias, it is still some excellent work. Alias gave him the opportunity to really go nuts in the scoring, and he turned out some of TV’s greatest scoring on that series. For Lost, things are more lyrical and restrained, but often times very beautiful. Like Alias, Lost has a score CD release for each of the first two seasons. I fear that his fantastic scores from the third through fifth seasons of Alias won’t likely see a release, but hopefully his work on the most recent third and on future seasons of Lost will see release.
4. Boston Legal - Danny Lux
   Danny Lux is a TV composer who has worked on a heck of a lot of notable shows, and is one of those workhorse composers; a jack of all trades. His work is pretty much completely unrepresented on CD or the likes, and he has a pretty low profile in the scoring fan community. But I can’t help but be impressed by the stuff he cranks out from time to time - particularly for David E. Kelley shows. The music in Boston Legal is as out-there and strangely-fragmented as the show itself, not to mention being appropriately over-the-top. It’s almost the kind of music that should be annoying, but by some miracle it manages to walk that line and work brilliantly.
5. Monk - Jeff Beal
   Still to this day, I think it was a mistake to have dropped Jeff Beal’s delightful main title theme to this show for Randy Newman’s stereotypically bouncy song. Beal constantly turns in charming and delightful scoring work for this quirky mystery comedy series. Like Monk himself, the score is warm and charming, but very much off-center. Beal has been a rising star in TV scoring work in recent years. His work from the earlier episodes of the show was released on a nice score CD.
   
6. 30 Rock - Jeff Richmond
   One of the single most goofball and daffy aspects of this hilarious series is Jeff Richmond’s offbeat and delightfully bouncy music. Richmond is writer/producer/star Tina Fey’s husband, so it’s no mystery how he got the assignment. All things being equal, it was a great choice, since he does such fun work on the show. It’s one of the aspects of the show that helps place it firmly in the world of farce.
7. Smallville - Mark Snow
   I couldn’t possibly make a list of TV scoring work and not include Mark Snow somewhere in it. His work on Smallville may not be as original or groundbreaking as some of his previous work (like the one that made him famous - The X-Files), but it’s still solid stuff. Getting to balance character and family sensibilities with lofty Americana and superhero action, Snow gets to play around quite a bit with this show.
8. CSI - John M. Keane
   While his work in recent seasons has been more subtle and lower key, Keane has contributed plenty of nice work to this excellent series. It’s consistently better than the scoring work for the two spin-off shows. Then again, so are the song selections. Keane’s best work on the show was done in the first season, some of which is represented on the early soundtrack CD for the show.

There’s a number of other current shows that do a very respectable job in the music score department, but they don’t quite single themselves out in my mind as particularly groundbreaking or worth special attention. Such honorable mentions go to the likes of Medium, Supernatural and the procedurals like Numb3rs, Bones, etc.

Other than having a couple minor problems with this film, I thought it was great. Kevin Costner isn’t an actor for which I have a particular liking. He’s simply average in a number of movies, or poor in a handful, but he does have some standout work that helps redeem those other, lesser films and performances. This is one of those great standout performances from him. The movie is both a standard psychological thriller and a unique one at the same time. While it takes many of the twists and turns of a genre film, it presents it in a very interesting way, with particularly great characters and ideas in the mix. I’ll mention the couple things in the movie I had a problem with at the end of the review, to avoid spoilers.

Writing: As something of a first person narrative, the writing on this film contains some fascinating moments of detached insight. Personally, I find serial killer movies that feature the killer in an introspective framework rather fascinating. This one does it in a way that’s not only a great way for the killer to analyze himself on screen for the audience, but also acts as a rather unique method for his madness. Then there’s the cool family aspect of it all, which is sprinkled in quite interestingly.

Production: Filming and editing is done in standard psychological thriller form, which isn’t a criticism in particularly. It’s solid with nothing to really complain about. Cinematography, sound, sets, locations, costumes - all of it is up to the task. This isn’t a movie that’s gonna knock your socks of in that regard - it’s more about narrative and performance.

Cast: Like I said, Costner is quite good as Mr. Brooks. For most of the movie, he’s cool and collected, and Costner makes all that work very well. But what really shines are the moments where he gives in to his darker side. Speaking of which, I must praise William Hurt’s performance. His little “devil-on-the-shoulder” mannerisms are great, and so much fun to watch. Demi Moore is surprisingly good in a fairly unusual role - which is given an unusual dimension for such a character. Her performance is excellent, and I do wish she’d get more high profile roles. She was the one saving grace of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and was particularly good in Bobby. Dane Cook is well cast - though I think Ryan Reynolds might have been a slightly better fit (Cook always reminds me of a second-choice Reynolds substitute actor). Danielle Panabaker, an actress who continues to impress, slips in a rather sly and interesting performance. The rest of the supporting cast is populated with a talented cast, from Marg Helgenberger to Lindsay Crouse to Reiko Aylesworth.

Music: Ramin Djawadi has done some decent work on TV shows like Prison Break, and has had an association with Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control cadre of composers in the past. His score shows some of that influence, with a bit of Clint Mansell’s style mixed in. The score is mildly stylish and pretty effective. Not a best score of the year candidate, but perfectly solid.

OK, here’s the couple complaints. Spoilers ahead. One of the scenes I didn’t like, despite the cool sound mixing work in it, was the big shootout sequence with Demi Moore’s character and the convict hunting her down. They could have ended the shootout after the first 30 seconds, but instead they ramp it up into this big, ridiculous action sequence like something from a John Woo film. It’s a huge misstep of a sequence for the film, and I heard a couple other people making fun of it after the film was over, so I wasn’t the only one. It could have easily been edited down to a workable scene. The other is a small thing, but it annoyed me none-the-less. I’m perfectly fine with movies taking liberties with the use of computers and information for ease of plotting. Films and TV have been doing it for SO long, and almost always in a manner so completely unrealistic, that I’ve grown rather used to it. But this movie contains such a scene (Brooks pulling up Detective Atwood’s records and history) and makes the mistake of having his character deliver a really poor piece of exposition about just how easy it was. I don’t recall the exact wording, but it made me cringe.