Battlestar Galactica: Season Two
Reviewed by Jonathan Shearon
October 11, 2006

Now entering its third season, the revamped Battlestar Galactica series stands at a creative high point. Thanks to brilliant writing, well drawn characters and a hyper-relevant allegorical story arc producer Ron Moore and his team have managed to create one of the best, if not the best, dramas on television from the unlikeliest of shaggy dog source material. Playing no small part in Galactica’s success is composer Bear McCreary’s unique musical take on the clich&eactute; ridden sci-fi genre.

In season two, McCreary has held fast to the distinctive style he and Richard Gibbs, who composed the music for the pilot mini-series, created in the first season; an eclectic mix of world music and traditional orchestral writing. It’s a peculiar but compelling post-modern stew that sounds like Peter Gabriel’s Passion sprinkled with some Lisa Gerrard vocalizations here and there and a little Phillip Glass-ish string writing for good measure. Although that sounds like a counterintuitive recipe for sci-fi television music, it works like gangbusters both in the show and on disc.

Terrific moments abound this time around: Raya Yarbrough’s haunting and fragile vocals on “Lords of Kobol”, the killer rapid-fire ostinato figure in “Prelude to War”, the folk-like Celtic influenced “Reuniting the Fleet”. Fans of the original series will be pleased to find a reverent and exciting rendition of Stu Philips’ theme in the album opener “Colonial Anthem”, which builds slowly into a rousing performance of the theme for full orchestra. McCreary also continues developing the delicate classically-tinted string motif from the end of season one in “Allegro” and most beautifully in the tender “A Promise to Return”.

New this season is a stronger emphasis on a pop/rock aesthetic. “Pegasus” and “Something Dark is Coming” are full of dreamy, ethereal guitar ruminations, while “Black Market” goes much darker with a heavy drum and bass rock band approach and thunderous, funky groove provided by long-time Danny Elfman orchestrator Steve Bartek, here on a distorted electric guitar. While this stuff might not normally be your cup of tea, it really works here to heighten the gritty atmosphere of the show.

In season two, McCreary has again managed to craft feature quality scores week after week that often surpass a lot of the nondescript junk out there in theaters right now. My only question is when is some smart Hollywood producer or director going to give this guy a major feature film scoring job? Not that I would want him to stop doing Battlestar Galactica…

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