40 - Paradise Towers

Composer: Keff McCulloch
Director: Nicholas Mallett

What's the score?
David Snell was originally commissioned to provide the incidental music for this story on the basis of some sample cues that had met with producer John Nathan-Turner's approval. However, when the music for the last two episodes was delivered, Nathan-Turner had a change of heart and rejected the score. Thanks to the efforts of those involved in putting together the DVD release of this story, we can at last hear Snell's score for ourselves... and I'm with Nathan-Turner on this one. It doesn't help that Snell seems to have used just two synth voices throughout the entire thing. But then electronic composition isn't his usual medium - he's an orchestral composer/arranger first and foremost, and if we imagine the rejected score being performed by a chamber ensemble in the Dudley Simpson style, it makes a lot more sense. Unfortunately, there's no way DW's budget at this time would have stretched to hiring that many extra musicians.
Nathan-Turner now turned to Keff McCulloch, his go-to composer in a fix. McCulloch recalls in an interview on the DVD that he was told to put on hold his work for Delta and the Bannermen, which he had begun at this point, and to focus on composing a new score for Paradise Towers in the alarmingly short time available to him. He claims to have completed the task in about a week, working as near to non-stop as he could, while the DVD production subtitles assert that the final score was delivered just two days before Part One was broadcast. By way of comparison, DW composers might ordinarily expect to have upwards of a week to compose and record the music for a single episode.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the sound palette for this score is very similar to that used for Time and the Rani, with some moments even copied across directly (the sound used for Tetrap point-of-view shots in the previous story is recycled here as underpinning for a couple of sinister moments in Part Two). McCulloch still manages to provide a lot of engaging new content, but as Part Four rolls around, the round-the-clock toil seems to be taking its toll, with an increasing proportion of the music sounding as though it was created on the spot in direct reaction to what happens on screen.

Musical notes

• Perhaps the most memorable piece of incidental music from this story is the theme used for the Cleaner robots in Parts One and Two. It's an ebullient, knockabout piece in synth horns - it's often criticised by DW fans for being over-the-top, but aesthetically it's of a piece with the bright, chunky robot props themselves. Your humble blogger is happy to accept the premise that the Cleaners are supposed to look like that, and to accept the musical cue accordingly. In Parts Three and Four, however, it is usurped by another theme...
• The theme used throughout for the Caretakers is a weary succession of soft chords over an uneven beat in 7/4 time, with light percussion ornamentation. Like the Caretakers themselves, it sounds dogged but dog-tired. Variations of it with more ornamentation pop up here and there - there's one in Part Four that adds a curious selection of metallic sounds to punctuate the gestures of a stalking party of Kangs. It's also heard over the first scene of a robotic Cleaner in Part Three, following which it's an even bet whether the Cleaners will get the Caretaker theme or an entirely different bit of music in any given scene. There's no Caretaker in that scene in Part Three - not even a dead one sticking out of the Cleaner's skip attachment. Did McCulloch forget he had that other theme ready, in the general rush to get the score completed? Was it the result of sleep deprivation? Or did he simply lose confidence in the Cleaner theme, too late to remove it from the first two episodes?
• It's more than usually easy to spot - or think you've spotted - the influence of pop music in this score. The merest hint of Go West's "We Close Our Eyes" (1985) in the Cleaner theme? Or, for an even further stretch of the imagination, the chord progressions of Michael Jackson's "Rock With You" (1979) in the hyperactive piece that plays over the denouement as Pex steels himself to barge the Chief Caretaker into a room full of explosives? Who knows what might have been going through McCulloch's mind towards the end of that week? But the most striking likeness is to another TV show - listen to the shambling 7/4 of the Caretaker theme in Part One, as the ill-fated Caretaker #345/12 sub3 walks his beat with walkie-talkie in hand, and you're sure to think of the theme tune from hit ITV cop series The Bill. (Later versions of The Bill's theme are even more McCulloch-friendly - the 2003 version even includes his beloved orchestra hits - but the versions in force between 1984 and 1987 show that off-kilter beat just as clearly.) 
• Two diegetic pieces are featured in Part Three. The first is the strings-and-flute-led tune used as background music for the Paradise Towers promotional video brochure that the Doctor is seen watching at various points; it has the earnestness typical of this sort of promotional film. The other is the calming lounge muzak, all high, stretched-out synth chords and smug piano, heard in the swimming pool zone when Mel and Pex finally arrive there. It's also briefly and quietly heard near the start of Part Four, just before the Pool Cleaner attacks Mel.
• Once again, McCulloch plays around with the DW theme tune, referencing it extensively in this score. The first and biggest of these references is the pair of cues that frame the lengthy scene in Part Two of the Doctor being held prisoner by the Caretakers. It's an airy muzak arrangement of the theme - although there's no suggestion that it's supposed to play diegetically as muzak - quite fitting for this scene of characters forced to wait around at length, and quite lovely. Later in Part Two there's a more "action shot" use of the bassline and a brief "oo-wee-oo" in a scene of the Doctor escaping down a corridor. Lastly, the final cue of Part Four quotes the melody of the theme tune in a wistful way as the Doctor and Mel sneak off to the TARDIS.

Vox pop
This is an incidental score that I remember from first transmission - the repeated Cleaner and Caretaker themes stuck with me for some time afterwards - and it still gives me enormous pleasure. Considered in hindsight next to the other scores of Season 24, it's much less polished, and for obvious reasons. Still, there's something to be said for musical rawness as an accompaniment to this particular story.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release does not include the isolated score for this story, although it does include the option to watch the broadcast episodes with David Snell's score instead of Keff McCulloch's. The photo gallery features only four and a half minutes of McCulloch's music.
• The Doctor Who 25th Anniversary Album included six tracks taken from Paradise Towers. "Towers El Paradiso" is the muzak heard in the swimming pool in Part Three. "Drinksmat Dawning" is the piece heard in Part Two as the Doctor introduces the Red Kangs to fizzy pop ("soda", if you're American). "Newsreel Past" is the background music from the Paradise Towers promotional brochure. "Guards of Silence" features a burst of the Cleaner theme followed by the DW theme pastiche heard in the scene of the Doctor in custody in Part Two. "The Making of Pex" is the boisterous cue from the scene in Part Four in which Pex sacrifices himself. Lastly, "Goodbye Doctor", the final cue of the story.