This will be the inaugural post of me talking about TV and things I see going on today… and what I see is disturbing.

Note to TV editors, and people who are responsible for background music: please stop giving us the 3 minute montage with some unknown woman wailing like she’s Tori Amos. If you need to have music to tell us what we’re supposed to feel during this near useless scene, then the scene doesn’t work. If you’ve run out of something to say and you have to have three pages of filler – fill it with story. I am really tired of the same type of artist singing the same sort of music to the same sort of montage. Main character (usually female) has to make some sort of decision, but she feels obligated to sit in pajamas or lingerie and look mopey.

Really? What are you doing with this? Is this an insult (We think you’re too stupid to be able to read facial expression, so we’re going to hammer this emotion into you with the sound of cats vomiting that we swear sounds like real music. Enjoy.)? Is this a crass marketing ploy (You’re a brainless fan, and we thing that you’re going to buy anything with the name of this show on it – just wait until we come out it the personal hygiene products! Hope you have a strong stomach – not only for the music, but for those hygiene product placement ads!)? Is this the writer just running out of steam?

Don’t get me wrong – I like music in TV. I understand its function in the genre, but… for God’s sake, why can’t we stick to instrumental music? It’s not like we the audience can’t be able to understand the emotional context without hearing someone wail about how their love is a red and rotting rose. Several of the programs that I like are guilty of this (Nikita and Ringer come to mind), and I could take one or two of them – but this is creeping into a lot of shows and I am not a huge fan of this.

What do you think, Good Reader? Is the music irritating or does it work for you?

Sincerely,

Seething With Apathy