To be irritated by the amount of songs in TV dramas?

[ThisFluentBiscuit]

Has anyone else noticed this? More and more TV dramas have long sequences, often slo-mo, where the action stops and there is only music.

To be clear, I'm not talking about background music. I'm talking about when the action and the story and the dialogue stops, and there's a song, accompanied by characters maybe looking soulful and doing something inconsequential, like cooking dinner. In slo-mo.

When it happens over and over again, not only is it boring, but if you don't like the song, it's even worse. It also hugely interrupts the flow of drama. I'm watching for the story, I'm not watching a musical or a concert,

I first noticed it when watching The Morning Show, which has been the worst offender so far. There are four series, and I looked up and counted how many songs, because they seemed endless. I forget exactly how many, but I think it was 110. A hundred and ten songs, where the dialogue stops, in a drama! I just kept fast-forwarding.

I've just tried to watch Meghan Markle's Netflix offering - the cooking show - and it started with a song while two people walked, instead of dialogue. I had to switch it off.

It's a way of having to do less work. Just film characters doing nothing much and throw a song over the top, and you have a few minutes of not having to write any dialogue or the characters having to really work. Throw in multiple songs, and your workload per episode is suddenly much lighter! I think one episode of The Morning Show had nine breaks in the action where songs were inserted.

And I've yet to hear a song in these circs that I actually like.

When did dramas get so musical? I think it's a new American thing. Has anyone else noticed it? I'm finding it highly irritating.

Sorry, I just looked up the Morning Show again, and it's 103 songs across three series. But those three series only total 24 episodes.

One episode has NINE songs.

Again - not background music. Breaks in the action for slo-mo and a song. 😤

We are watching The City is Ours, really enjoying it, and enjoying the music too, but some of the song choices are a bit literal and turn it into Home Under the Hammer at times. There was one in episode 4 that we watched last nigh, that made me and DH laugh, I can't remember the song now, cos it's early morning, but once you notice the song placing, it does spoil things a bit.

It’s a montage

always makes me think of this…

The fashion is that tv programmes have to be long and drawn out now but the writers don't really write anymore than they always did. Ncis is 42 minutes long and wraps up the story in that time like it did 23 years ago. I tried to watch Shetland which was made about 10 years ago and Christ I was bored rigid especially the second series which in the first episode you could see was going to have every cop show cliche going

Even Rocky had a montage

I promise you it’s not to enable the actors, crew, director or writers to ‘do less work’. Thought couldn't be further. It’s because it’s thought to be poignant, a dramatic pause, pace setter etc.

I've watched the whole of The Morning Show and never noticed this so it didn't disrupt the flow of it or anything for me.

I loved the music on the Morning Show! It creates the atmosphere of the show. I’ve actually got a Morning Show playlist playing on Spotify right now.

yes, irritates me too.
I've watched a few recently where they shohorn in a scene in a club etc. as an excuse to then have a singer sing a full song.

I expected this thread to be about this. We watched the penultimate episode last night and I’m giving away nothing of the plot to say that there was a downbeat, slightly breathy version of Mack the Knife, complete with slo-mo on-screen action. DH and I really laughed.

Very much enjoyed the use of The House of Bamboo though, I’ve wanted to see much more line-dancing throughout. It’s really what gritty BBC dramas are missing.

Tighter budgets though maybe?

YANBU OP, it drives me nuts. Hate it.

Completely agree OP - it's a cop out on the part of the director/writer/whoever.

Plus I hate it even more if it's a 'breathy' cover song ....urggghhh.

Grey’s Anatomy has been doing this for 20 years, and ‘teen’ shows like Dawson’s Creek and One Tree Hill also did it all those years ago, so it’s not a new thing. I like it.

Oh yeah, there has always been music in shows. It just seems to be becoming excessive. That episode of The Morning Show with nine songs during which nothing happened! 😒

Definitely going to avoid The City is Ours!

How do you know? Sounds like you work in the industry?

Just coming on to post that link! Makes me laugh every time I watch it 😁 (I'm childish, I accept it)

Some of those nine will have been very short moments from the songs. I’ve binged all three series of the Morning Show in the last couple of weeks and only thought that they used music really effectively. Not that it was taking the place of a storyline .

Oh I completely agree. And the breathy cover versions are the absolute worst.

Something else that really annoys me about songs is that I've started watching many streaming shows with the subtitles on because of all the mumbly actors.

ALWAYS the song choice is chosen by specific reference to the title or lyrics which are supposed to be ultra appropriate to the scene. Before I got involved in the subtitle stuff I never was aware of this because who listens that closely to lyrics and my music knowledge isn't so wide that I can readily identify titles.

It really irritates me for some reason - it's so painfully try-hard.

This reminds me of rewatching the film Drive the other week. I could get only hold of a version which had been re-scored (right word?) by one of the BBC1 DJs and it was SO SHIT. Not only did the original film have an iconic background soundtrack, but this new one was so distracting with loud songs every 5mins!

I agree

This irritates me. Probably because it's usually a breathy female vocalist accompanied by a twangy guitar. 😂

I caught the end of Heartbeat today and they were playing Toad by Cream which was hilarious