The soundtrack from AMC’s recent remake of The Prisoner is very much like the show itself: it starts out sounding as though it might go to some interesting places, and ends up plodding along into territory that’s largely pointless and meandering. I’ve tried to give every remake of late a fair shake; V and Battlestar Galactica were probably due for a rethink, and Galactica certainly delivered the goods. The problem with Galactica being so wildly successful is that it’s probably prompted more studio suits to green-light reboots of existing franchises that just don’t need a revisitation. The Prisoner is certainly in that category: while certain elements of the original 1960s series are signal flares for the era during which the show was made, those elements were far outweighed by themes both timeless and troubling. The original show is still universally hailed as a milestone of TV storytelling – as the original DVD releases said on the box, “television’s first masterpiece.” With all of that praise, who was bucking for a remake?

The answer is simple: the studio that still held the copyright on Patrick McGoohan’s original concept and 17 episodes. Surely a modernization of the story would find ample material to dramatize in a post-9/11 world, with the themes of identity, staying in lockstep with the popular majority and bucking the system havingly only gained incredible significance in the intervening years. Instead, what emerged from the new Prisoner was a muddle of half-baked ideas with little or no resonance, failed attempts at fan-pleasing callbacks to the original series that more often than not seemed grafted on at the last minute, and murky vagueness standing in for the original show’s symbolism and mystery. Replace the original Number Six’s seething, barely-able-to-keep-it-from-bubbling-over rage at his predicament with a new Number Six who just really didn’t want to be in the Village (but can’t remember why), and the new Prisoner is just an ill-thought-out mess that isn’t remotely a patch on McGoohan’s show. Hopefully the new show won’t poison the ongoing mystique of its vastly superior forebear.

One of the few things I did find to like about AMC’s Prisoner was its frequently-trippy musical score. Just about every note of original score and library music used in the ’60s version has been released, re-released, stamped, filed, indexed, numbered and critically dissected, and it’s well known that the disorienting near-elevator-muzak tone of the original show’s music was intended as part of its overall unsettling effect. Rupert Gregson-Williams opts for a more modern tone, but keeps some of that unsettling feel in many tracks by layering in backward elements that intertwine with the main melodic and harmonic ideas. Early tracks on the soundtrack CD are quite interesting to listen to, and demand more than one listening to really catch how all the sounds, both forward and backward, fit together.

Sadly, many of the later tracks are bogged down in a kind of non-specific, quasi-Mediterranean millieu, with the appropriate meandering string instruments that have been all the rage of late with non-orchestral scoring. There are still occasional orchestral elements, but the latter half of the CD is quite frankly not really relaxing, but just plain sleepy. The main theme for the series as a whole is a strange mix of ’70s keyboard sounds and modern electronics – and it barely breaks out from the score itself to do what a main theme should (i.e. provide a sonic signature that lets you know, even from the TV in the next room, that The Prisoner is on, and you need to report to the Village immediately).

Ironically, it’s only a couple of source cues which turn out to be the closest that this score comes to the tone of the original show; several songs appeared in the AMC series which aren’t included here, such as selections from Brian Wilson’s Smile.

I can’t muster much more than a 2 rating for this soundtrack; there’s simply too much of it that, rather like the show, loses its way and goes off into the desert, never to return. I can’t even really fault the composer, as I can’t imagine the scripts and footage providing enough inspiration for anyone to create music that salvages the entire endeavour (see also: the Star Trek: The Motion Picture effect). Sad to say, this soundtrack is probably the most worthwhile thing to come from the 2009 remake of The Prisoner.

1. Explosion (1:42)
2. Everybody Knows Everybody (2:29)
3. The Ocean (5:03)
4. Two (5:58)
5. Shadows And Nightmares (3:05)
6. 909 (3:36)
7. Tour Bus (0:57)
8. Walk With Me (2:25)
9. 313 (2:58)
10. Lucy (6:17)
11. Six Investigates (1:30)
12. Wonkers (0:59)
13. The Ruins (3:03)
14. Blackmail (3:28)
15. Escape Resort (1:21)
16. One Night Together (4:39)
17. Wedding Day (3:23)
18. Waking Up (2:16)
19. Helen (6:36)
20. In The Church (5:53)
21. Suicide (2:48)
22. I Am Not A Number (3:15)
23. The Prisoner Titles (0:37)

Released by: Varese Sarabande
Release date: 2009
Total running time: 74:18

A fun little EP released just in time for the holiday season, It’s A Chiptune Holiday! is a selection of traditional Christmas music, done in old-school video game style with 8 Bit Weapon’s usual arsenal of custom-programmed classic console sound chips.

“Deck The Halls” kicks things off with harmonized vocoder vocals – it’s like a cheerful choir of Christmas-caroling robots. “Jingle Bells” and “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” also have robotic vocals, though the latter has a kind of strange diction that makes me wonder if it really is a voice synthesizer as opposed to a human singer’s processed vocals.

The instrumentals are a treat too; “O Christmas Tree” is given a polyphonic arrangement that makes it sound like a “win” tune from Pole Position; “Ave Maria” actually comes closest to what I was expecting to hear from an EP of 8-bit Christmas tunes.

The only problem with It’s A Chiptune Holiday! is that it’s just too short! I instantly thought of about a dozen other Christmas tunes that would sound great with the 8 Bit Weapon treatment; I realize that it’d mean venturing into non-public-domain territory, but I can just about hear a chiptune version of “Christmastime Is Here” from Vince Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown Christmas special soundtrack in my head.

The good news is, I hear they’ve already scheduled Christmas for next year – you’ve got 12 months to get on the case, 8 Bit Weapon!

1. Deck The Halls (Nos Galan) (1:52)
2. Hanukkah (Festival Of Lights) (1:01)
3. O Christmas Tree (O Chanukah) (1:31)
4. Jingle Bells (One Horse Open Sleigh) (1:14)
5. Joy To The World (2:09)
6. Greensleeves (What Child Is This) (1:51)
7. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (2:13)
8. Ave Maria (The Well-Tempered Clavier) (3:25)

Released by: 8 Bit Weapon
Release date: 2009
Total running time: 15:16

Returning full-circle to the early days of his career as a contract composer working for one studio or another, Jerry Goldsmith was no stranger to The Twilight Zone, having devised the music for some of its classic television installments. By the time he was tapped for the big-screen re-interpretation of it, however, Goldsmith was one of the major players in movie music…and in 1983, just a few years after Aliens and Star Trek: The Motion Picture and their knockout scores, that’s putting it mildly. According to the information-dense booklet that’s become a hallmark of Film Score Monthly’s impressive CDs, Goldsmith was more than happy to return to this particular dimension of sight and sound. This CD gathers, for the first time, every note of music recorded for Twilight Zone: The Movie, including background source music and even leaving room for the suites that were specially recorded or edited together for the original 1983 album release (in the back of the booklet, a running order is included for those who wish to program their CD players to reflect the original LP running order).

If there’s a composer better suited to this unusual movie – which did its best to reflect its short-story-length episodic roots – I can’t imagine who it would be. Goldsmith is called upon to deliver, effectively, four distinctly different scores for one film, as well as framing sequences bookended by Marius Constant’s immortal Twilight Zone theme. What’s all the more impressive is that Goldsmith doesn’t seem to have changed a thing about the original theme, completely forgoing the opportunity to update it or broaden it for the big screen. This is one of the elements that really works toward making the film an integral chapter of the franchise: whether you’re talking about the music or the scripts, it doesn’t completely betray the source material just to cash in on the name (which it very easily could have – the movie languished in development hell for some time as its structure was endlessly debated at the studio).

The first story in the movie’s four-episode format, Time Out, receives a deceptively old-fashioned score: heavy on rumbling piano bass notes and an occasional snare drum cadence, it’s nothing that couldn’t have been done with the meager musical resources at Goldsmith’s command in the original TV series. Kick The Can, the second story, has a broader musical palette, but it accomplishes this by way of synths which were, even then, obviously synths.

The third story, It’s A Good Life, receives an unusual musical treatment to say the least – there are moments of beauty and wonder that sound like they might’ve emerged from the Star Trek: The Motion Picture score, and then there are Carl Stalling-inspired slices of cartoon whimsy that inevitably descend into something with a much more sinister feel. Jarring, but effective; “The House” is one of my favorite pieces of Goldsmith music from this epoch of his career.

The fourth and final story, Nightmare At 20,000 Feet, is the crowning glory of Twilight Zone: The Movie, revisiting a segment of the original series that starred William Shatner. In the big-screen iteration, however, John Lithgow is the increasingly paranoid passenger who rants and raves that he’s seen “a man on the wing of the plane!” Nightmare is one of my favorite pieces of early ’80s genre cinema, and it gets a devilishly devious musical treatment with plenty of scratchy fiddle and wavering, almost-theremin-like synthesizer to signify the gremlin that’s tearing the plane apart before Lithgow’s eyes. And speaking of gremlins, in between the big, brassy suspense cues, the creature also gets a musical signature that one can tell was rhythmically built upon by Goldsmith for Gremlins a year later – though not madly similar melodically, the rhythmic resemblance is undeniable. In Gremlins, the same rhythm gained a playful-but-sinister tone, but here, it’s just plain scary.

The bonus tracks include the edited-down suites from the original LP, previously unreleased songs recorded for the backgrounds of certain scenes (which, while seemingly out of place next to the orchestral score, were still written by Goldsmith), and a few alternate takes. It was mentioned at the beginning of this review, but the booklet is an outstanding source of behind-the-scenes info about both the movie and its music, including the original LP liner notes. Twilight Zone: The Movie was a major release from a major studio, and Film Score Monthly’s presentation more than does it justice.

1. Main Title: The Twilight Zone Theme (0:48)

Time Out

2. Questions / The Ledge (4:03)
3. Yellow Star (3:57)

Kick The Can

4. Harp and Love (1:27)
5. Weekend Visit (1:34)
6. Kick The Can (0:37)
7. Night Games (1:54)
8. Take Me With You / A New Guest (10:13)

It’s A Good Life

9. The House (2:30)
10. The Sister / I Didn’t Do It (1:22)
11. Carbon Monster (3:08)
12. That’s All, Ethel (1:48)
13. No More Tricks (3:57)

Nightmare At 20,000 Feet

14. Nervous Pills (2:39)
15. No Smoking (2:07)
16. On The Wing (1:21)
17. A Face In The Window (2:11)
18. Engine Failure (1:38)
19. Overture: Twilight Zone Theme and End Title (6:03)

Bonus Tracks

20. Nights Are Forever (3:36)
21. Anesthesia (3:04)
22. Questions / The Ledge (album edit) (3:03)
23. Take Me With You / A New Guest (album edit) (5:03)
24. That’s All Ethel (album edit) (4:29)
25. Cartoon Music (1:27)
26. A Face In The Window / Hungry Monster / Twilight Zone Theme (album edit) (4:58)

Released by: Film Score Monthly
Release date: 2009
Total running time: 78:57