Star Trek goes Musical

Music has always played a prominent role in Star Trek, for example the iconic theme from the Original Series by Alexander Courage or the film scores by Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner and Michael Giacchino. But music also played a role in the plot itself time and again: Riker as a jazz trombonist, Data on the violin and Picard with his Ressican flute, the singing Doctor in Voyager, Vic Fontaine in Deep Space Nine or the Klingon opera.

In the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode “Subspace Rhapsody”, however, the series producers have staged an episode entirely as a musical for the first time in the history of Star Trek. Suddenly and unexpectedly, Captain Pike and his crew find themselves in a situation where they suddenly start singing.

The lecture explores this episode and shows why it is a small but complete musical. Comparisons will be made to other musical episodes such as Scrubs or Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it will be discussed whether Star Trek is suitable for musicals at all.