Amazing Stories - Anthology One
Reviewed by Justin Bielawa
September 06, 2006

Steven Spielberg attempted to jump start the anthology genre in the 1980s with Amazing Stories. More akin to the morality plays of The Twilight Zone than the sci-fi whiz-bang of The Outer Limits, the show featured major Hollywood talents - big name actors, respected directors and, of course, highly talented composers. The show had a very high budget, allowing a new composer for each episode and a generously sized television orchestra of around forty players, though this increased and decreased at the composer's whim.

The show's title theme is an all too short John Williams jaunt that establishes the epic, whimsical quality of the shows stories. Opening with a stirring horn call, the theme is firmly grounded in the classic style of the composer and sounds like a precursor to his later work on Hook and Harry Potter.

Since no two episodes were the same, there was no real unifying sound outside of the title theme. For example, the first disc opens with the score to "Ghost Train", with a reflective and gentle Americana score by Williams which segues into Horner's "Alamo Jobe", with its harmonica and percussion heavy score (including a motif that he would later adopt into his classic score to An American Tail). Other scores on the disc, like the tongue-in-cheek "Mummy, Daddy" by then newcomer Danny Elfman and the touchingly gentle Delerue music for "The Doll", show the expansive range covered by the show. So, despite - or perhaps because of - the lack of a singular sound, the show finds its greatest strength in having as many musical voices as it did special guest stars.

The score that may stand out the most is the horror heavy music Billy Goldenberg wrote for the segment "The Amazing Falsworth". Rich with confusing and dissonant notes, it totally plays against not only the already unnerving episode about a piano bar psychic run afoul of a serial killer - but the rest of the music in this collection. It sticks out like a sore thumb in the best possible way.

Intrada's packaging is top-notch as usual, and the liner notes by Jon Burlingame are truly outstanding. Each episode is covered with a brief synopsis, as well as the individual names and running time for each cue. Colorful and with a thick sheen of gloss, this first anthology bodes well for the discs to follow and is a welcome addition for any collector, new or old. This is probably the most surprising and most welcomed set to come out this year, barring the dozen disc Bernstein box from FSM. Limited to a mere three thousand copies, one would do well to catch it before the discs disappear from shelves as quickly as the show did from television land.

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