Music in Cult TV: An Introduction

How does music enrich and define cult television series? Analyzing theme tunes and scoring on television, the book reveals how composers construct a series' identity using musical idioms and instruments, and how characters and plot developments are enhanced by their musical accompaniment. The different scoring strategies employed in science fiction and horror-based genres, whose shows include Star Trek or Dr. Who, are considered alongside cult shows set in our reality, such as Dexter, The Sopranos, and Queer as Folk. These discussions are complimented by in-depth case studies of musical approaches in three high-profile series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, and Lost. Overall, the book provides a guide to the main types of scoring, including theme music, final scene music, end credit music, and recurring narrative themes.

Whereas films typically extend for two or three hours, a television programme-and particularly cult TV series-may span more than a hundred hours of episodes released over several years. Complex and idiosyncratic scores develop to accommodate these elongated time spans and their evolving narratives. The book presents the Buffy/Angel love theme on

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