Did the musical score ruin the 4th season?

[Spooky Owl!]

...per DVD count, the 1980/81 year which opened with JR's shooting and ended with Kristin in the Southfork pool.

Just as there was a long, legendary actors' strike during that interminably hot summer of 1980, delaying the start of the new TV season by a couple of months, there was also a major composers' union strike. That latter strike resulted in the first two-thirds of DALLAS' Season 4 using an old, ominous score from John Scott, uncredited, presumably in the public domain.

I rather like Scott's score during the "Who Shot JR?" story arc, and perhaps even a little beyond it. But, ultimately, its overuse really seemed to make the season drag... It was DALLAS' highest-rated year, obviously, because of the momentum created by the global phenomenon of 'WSJR?'. Yet the year became so glacial in its pacing that many viewers were turned off by (and away from) it.

Musical scoring is incredibly important, and any drama can find additional focus from an effective, appropriate score, but the wrong score can sink it.

Since the plots for the '80/'81 seemed absolutely necessary, was much of it undermined the endlessly repetitive exploitation of Scott's ponderous music? Because once the strike was over, and the usual old DALLAS musicians were back with fresh compositions, it suddenly felt like the plotting improved and even seemed to speed up --- but I think that was an illusion.

Thanks, @Garry !

 

[DallasFanForever]

I’m not the biggest fan of that season. After the whole WSJR reveal I’ve always felt it loses momentum quickly. Perhaps a lull was inevitable at this point after coming off such an incredible high but I never felt the music had anything to do with it to be honest. Maybe I just didn’t pay enough attention to these kinds of things.

 

[Guzzler’s Frightening Hair]

I understand why they couldn’t have new scores written and recorded, but have never understood why they had to use only that *one* stock score. I agree that it worked with the ominous first few post-shooting episodes, and find portions of it kind of mesmerizing. Do we know if it was originally written for a particular episode of a different show, and if that can be found somewhere?

Still beats “jazzy in scare quotes visible from outer space” Parker!

The one-two punch of that music and Jim Davis’s illness really took all the starch out of the season for me..

 

[Garry]

I understand why they couldn’t have new scores written and recorded, but have never understood why they had to use only that *one* stock score. I agree that it worked with the ominous first few post-shooting episodes, and find portions of it kind of mesmerizing. Do we know if it was originally written for a particular episode of a different show, and if that can be found somewhere?

About 50 perecent of the music came from John Scott. Other cues were taken from different composers. The music often appeared in the early years of the Australian TV series Prisoner Cell Block H, the 70's UK shows The Sweeney and The Famous Five.

 

[Bobby Southworth]

I loved the first half of this season, but I do agree that it lost some momentum, actually the very moment Leslie Stewart appeared. I still enjoy the whole season, but it was a little duller the second half. As far as the score, I guess it didn't hurt anything for me since I like the episodes with it the best. Yes, it was used too much, and was over the top, but kind of almost a guilty pleasre. "dum, da, dum, dum, duuuummm!!"

 

[alexpaige]

What it really shows more than anything is how much good scoring adds to a show and how much the lack of it hurts.

BTW I don't get the dislike of John Parker's scores ... I thought he was terrific.

Wish he'd been given a shot at doing an arrangement of the theme music (I know he did one for the soundtrack LP but that wasn't timed to the titles) - it would have been brilliant.

I still remember the season he did the theme arrangement for Trapper John MD as a jazz reinvention. I'm prejudiced because I love jazz, but I thought that would have worked great for Dallas.

Ok, now you can start throwing the tomatoes at me ...

**EDIT** Ok I see Parker actually wrote the Trapper John theme !! I didn't know that - all I remember is the season where the arrangement really changed to a very jazzy interpretation of the score, and I know that was him. Maybe it started off like that, went more 'straight' and then went back to it - I don't know. All I know is that the arrangement for the following season was boring as BS.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

What it really shows more than anything is how much good scoring adds to a show and how much the lack of it hurts.

BTW I don't get the dislike of John Parker's scores ... I thought he was terrific.

Wish he'd been given a shot at doing an arrangement of the theme music (I know he did one for the soundtrack LP but that wasn't timed to the titles) - it would have been brilliant.

I still remember the season he did the theme arrangement for Trapper John MD as a jazz reinvention. I'm prejudiced because I love jazz, but I thought that would have worked great for Dallas.

Ok, now you can start throwing the tomatoes at me ...

**EDIT** Ok I see Parker actually wrote the Trapper John theme !! I didn't know that - all I remember is the season where the arrangement really changed to a very jazzy interpretation of the score, and I know that was him. Maybe it started off like that, went more 'straight' and then went back to it - I don't know. All I know is that the arrangement for the following season was boring as BS.

John Parker wrote some excellent Native American-influenced scores for GUNSMOKE, and his earliest DALLAS scores were quite good.

But I'll just say: thank God Parker was gone from 1982 to 1986. Because, as you say, good scoring adds to a show and the lack of it hurts.

 

[alexpaige]

The weird thing about the Dallas scoring (I think Bruce Broughton pointed this out in an interview) is all the composers had different styles, but they all seemed to work for the show.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

The weird thing about the Dallas scoring (I think Bruce Broughton pointed this out in an interview) is all the composers had different styles, but they all seemed to work for the show.

Katzman knew their work as many of them had written for GUNSMOKE (when Katzman produced the '70s years) including Parker, Jerrold Immel, Bruce Broughton and others. And also from Katzman's time on HAWAII FIVE-0, where the same Columbia composers reigned.

In fact, Katzman should have brought in Morton Stevens and Richard Shores for DALLAS.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

About 50 perecent of the music came from John Scott. Other cues were taken from different composers. The music often appeared in the early years of the Australian TV series Prisoner Cell Block H, the 70's UK shows The Sweeney and The Famous Five.

Really? Do you know who the others were, because it all certainly sounds like it could've come from the same composer!

He's apparently 92 and still alive!

 

[Barbara On A Broomstick]

I enjoyed all the musical scores in Dallas and I do not think that WB should have changed or altered or cut out any music or scenes from the DVDs (Esp the Search) They Should have been packaged as they happened and were shown on 1st run

 

[Spooky Owl!]

And, yes, they used the same stock score on the other Lorimar shows that same season:

 

[kenneth]

Why not just reuse music from the first three seasons during the strike?

 

[Spooky Owl!]

Why not just reuse music from the first three seasons during the strike?

Guild issues. The music they used, mostly from John Scott, had to be in the public domain.

 

[Guzzler’s Frightening Hair]

And, yes, they used the same stock score on the other Lorimar shows that same season:

I didn’t recognize the music from the first part of the Kristin video.. but then as she was alone with Valene it kicked in! Same as when Sue Ellen was passed out in Ewing 2 in the DFW parking lot, if I recall correctly.

It kind of highlights the crossover between the shows and gives a spooky feel to the aftermath of JR’s shooting.

And of course the cue at the end of the “JR dines with the Fairgates” scene. Was that a bit later in the season?

Why not just reuse music from the first three seasons during the strike?

or just use more public domain material so they didn’t have to repeat themselves over and over! Was there a contractual reason? ..or maybe the sound editors were on strike along with the composers and the the producers felt they didn’t have the talent on hand and time to work in new cues? Lorimar must have been making big $$ at that point, so it wouldn’t have been budgetary, would it?

Maybe they’d anticipated that the strike would only cover the first few episodes, so they chose material to emphasize the creepy vibe of the shooting and were caught off guard as it dragged on well into the season?

In any event, that’s always been a real curiosity for me..

(heh, scrolled up to earlier posts in the thread and it seems I keep repeating myself!)

 

[Spooky Owl!]

(heh, scrolled up to earlier posts in the thread and it seems I keep repeating myself!)

Join the club.

Anyway, during the strike they couldn't use, or re-use, any copyrighted material. It had to be out of the public domain.

But it's a good question: couldn't they have found more music in the public domain? -- there must have been plenty of it!

It kind of highlights the crossover between the shows and gives a spooky feel to the aftermath of JR’s shooting.

It really does, helping to briefly bind parent series with spin-off, ominously in the wake of "WSJR?," just before both shows essentially part ways.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

I tend to accept the old stock score through "The Prodigal Mother" episode, and then I think it should have stopped. (Even if the strike running long enough prevented the usual composers from writing new stuff from that point forward, they should have at least re-used older scores -- from, say, Broughton, Immel, and Richard Lewis Warren) until they could start composing new ones for episodes later in the season that they had time to create.

Some have said they felt the stock score (mostly from John Scott) was still serviceable thru "The Executive Wife" a week later.