S18 Incidentals

[SiHart]

Season 18, as we know, marked the beginning of the Radiophonic Workshop's time as the in house composers for the show. Suddenly Dudley Simpson's little orchestra was out and synths were in, creating a whole new atmosphere on the show.

But do you like them?

And which was your favourite?

Si xx

[Lissa]

I think the only problem with the music in season 18 is that it sounds exactly like all the other shows the Radiophonic Workshop produced music for at that time. Hitch Hiker's being the obvious one but there are others. It's good stuff and very distinctive but has become dated in a way that Dudley Simpson's stuff hasn't.

[Stephen Morgan]

I think the music throughout the series is pretty similar, but you can't get a more sombre, doom laden score than that for Logopolis, it stuck with me for months after the series had finished so I'm going for that one.

[Antony Cox]

I've plumped for Logopolis too.

I adore the score for The Leisure Hive though I can't deny that there's a bit too much of it, but for sheer atmospherics it has to be the Season finale, even though Paddy is probably my least fave radiophonic composer.

[Jonno]

I love the Radiophonic stuff - old enough to be at the nostalgic factor now, plus helped by the fact I was very familiar with the non-Paddy Kingsland scores from The Music LP at a time when you couldn't rewatch the stories whenever you wanted!

Ironically though, it's a Paddy track I'm going for - Full Circle. I love Adric's theme and there's loads of other memorable stuff such as the TARDIS being sucked into the CVE and the Marshmen rising out of the swamp, plus come to think of it the climax of the second episode with Romana in peril. Yes, Full Circle it is!

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

It’s Logopolis for me. Paddy is my favourite of the Radiophonic composers (although Peter Howell is a very, very close second). Paddy’s scores are probably the most simple in terms of what he actually does musically, but they really work very well and as others have said have a great ‘atmospheric feel’ to them. With the exception of Mawdryn Undead a few years later Paddy’s scores are all quite similar, but even so, I really like them. I feel that he has a real knack of building up tension and also having little mini-themes for different places, or characters etc.
Logopolis in particular has a massive nostalgic appeal for me as I had an old audio cassette tape recording of it from the ‘5 faces’ repeats season.

If I were ever in a position to provide music for a TV drama I’d like it to sound like it was written and performed by Paddy Kingsland, Peter Howell, Mark Ayres and just a bit of my own work too.

[Rob McCow]

I've gone for the other end of the season - there's some lovely riffs in The Leisure Hive.

[SiHart]

I'm finding it difficult to decide as they're all brilliant and I like them for one reason or another. I'm going to have to ponder this one for a while yet i think.

Si xx

[WhiteCrowNZ]

It's a very hard choice - probably more so as some I've rewatched recently, others not since it was originally out.

The Leisure Hive scared me as a kid, but I really enjoyed it catching up on UK Gold.

Full Circle I remember really enjoying.

Warriors Gate I remember being quite surreal, but enjoyably wierd.

Keeper of Traken I remember having us glued to - but rewatching recently I was left less impressed.

Logopolis I think shines over all, because it's just such a complicated beast - a feeling of sadness of passing and excitement about what's to come. The idea of Logopolis the living computer really blew me away - the alleys of mathematicians chanting as they compute, it's just very imaginative, and to be honest rewatching today I don't feel let down by the visuals.

The horrific feeling of seeing people reduced to puppets of themselves by the TCE was quite chilling. Alas the fist episode is a bit padded. And it perhaps gets a thumbs down for me for the introduction of Tegan - who I found a really grating character ...

[SiHart]

Errr, this is a thread about the music, not the stories Mike!

Si xx

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Bah - kind of proves I should be in bed - lol. Still would go with Logopolis though ...

[SiHart]

After a lot of deliberation, I chose Full Circle. A story full of lovely, memorable themes.

Si xx