TV Talk: Music bolsters ‘Only Murders in the Building,’ ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’
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Musicals play a key role in the new season of Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building” and in a new episode of Paramount+’s “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.”
‘Only Murders’
For its third outing, the podcast created by Mabel (Selena Gomez), Charles (Steve Martin) and Oliver (Martin Short) investigates the death of Ben (Paul Rudd), a cast member from Oliver’s latest Broadway play, “Death Rattle.”
Through eight episodes made available for review, there are some signs of strain on this franchise. There’s seemingly not enough story to sustain 10 episodes with the writers opting for tangents from the primary mystery that don’t yield enough laughs or drama.
What saves the season are the musical numbers by consulting producers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (“La La Land,” “Dear Evan Hansen”).
After Ben’s murder, Oliver reconceives his play as a musical, which gives Meryl Streep, who plays actress Loretta, an opportunity to sing in episodes three and eight while Steve Martin amazes with a fast-paced patter song he workshops through the season and performs most successfully in the eighth episode.
Streaming its first two episodes Aug. 8 with weekly releases on Tuesdays after the premiere, the musical moments (and a few hilarious cameo appearances late in the season) pull the series out of a tedious storytelling funk, from a falling out among the three lead characters (resulting in the trio not being together on screen nearly enough) to bland relationship challenges for Charles and Joy (Andrea Martin).
While Oliver’s play seems an unlikely choice for a musical – the plot involves triplets and a death in a lighthouse during a hurricane where the only person in the room besides the deceased is an infant – Pasek and Paul take their assignment to write legit musical numbers seriously. They come up with at least two songs (Streep’s character sings a lullaby, Martin’s patter) that some viewers will surely want to purchase. (Some tracks will be released as digital downloads but so far Hulu/Disney Records has yet to announce which ones.)
While Martin’s rat-a-tat-tat performance is entertaining as heck, Streep’s “My Love is a Lighthouse” oozes with emotion and pathos (shades of Pasek and Paul’s music from “The Greatest Showman”).
Streep slides into the “Only Murders” ensemble with ease and her performance of an actress giving a performance is every bit as good as one would expect. The season is worth watching for Streep and the show’s ode to Broadway showmanship; just prepare to be disappointed when she and the music are not part of an episode.
‘Strange New Worlds’
TV series with characters breaking into song have been on the rise over the past two decades since “Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s” 2001 musical episode “Once More with Feeling” ignited interest in such deviations from the norm.
More shows followed including “Scrubs” in 2007 (featuring McMurray native Stephanie D’Abruzzo), “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” in 2008 and “Grey’s Anatomy” in 2011, not to mention whole series that are built on musical numbers, including “Glee,” “Nashville,” “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist,” “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,” recently-canceled Hulu show “Up Here,” “Schmigadoon!” and “Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies.”
With so many “Star Trek” series now in production, “Trek” was bound to eventually go the musical route and the ever-flexible – in episodic tone and genre – “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” is the ideal choice.
Now streaming on Paramount+, “Subspace Rhapsody” finds the U.S.S. Enterprise and its crew encountering an “improbability field” after Mr. Spock (Ethan Peck) and Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) send music through a subspace channel. Soon the whole crew sings about their inner emotional states as the anomaly follows the rules of Earth musicals much to the dismay of security chief La’an (Christina Chong).
Chong and Gooding have the best voices in the cast so they sing the most with La’an getting an “I want…” song, a la “Part of Your World” from “The Little Mermaid.”
Though the “Trek” musical features choreography and dance mostly missing from “Only Murders,” the “Trek” music and lyrics by Letters to Cleo’s Kay Hanley and Tom Polce, who also contributed songs to “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” don’t have the emotional heft or memorable lyrics/tunes of the Pasek and Paul songs in “Only Murders.” Still, La’an’s and Uhura’s solos and the grand finale might become earworms for some listeners. All 10 songs are available for digital download from major online music retailers (Apple, Amazon, etc).
For a “Trek” musical to work it depends on connections among the crew which “Strange New Worlds” has in spades. It’s a more enjoyable show than “Star Trek: Discovery” because of that sense of the crew as a family that “Discovery” eschewed in favor of conflict, serialized storytelling and characters constantly coming in and out of the show to the point it was rare to see a consistent set of crew members working together. On “Strange New Worlds” viewers see the core cast of eight together in almost every episode. That makes a difference.
Kept/canceled
HBO renewed “The Righteous Gemstones” for a fourth season.
Netflix’s Matt Groening-produced adult animated comedy “Disenchantment” will end with its fifth season premiering Sept. 1.
Channel surfing
For the first time since the writers’ strike began in May, representatives of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers requested to meet with the Writers Guild of America on Aug. 4 to “discuss negotiations.” … Fans of America Ferrera in the “Barbie Movie” take note: All four seasons of Ferrera’s “Ugly Betty” are now streaming on Netflix. … Comedian Hasan Minhaj (“Patriot Act”) is in the running to become the new host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” where he was a correspondent from 2014-2018. … As it has poached talent from Hallmark Channel (Candace Cameron Bure, Lori Loughlin, Danica McKellar, Trevor Donovan), cable network Great American Family will be the new 2024 cable home for the Tournament of Roses Parade, which will also air on ABC and NBC/Peacock. … Season five of Netflix’s “Virgin River” will release in two batches of episodes dropping Sept. 7 and Nov. 30.