This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Strange New Worlds 2x09 Subspace Rhapsody.
Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.
They had most of the big musical tropes, including a rebuke and reprise (nurse chapel and Spock’s subsequent song).
I felt Soong’s song was a direct reference to On My Own from Les Miserable, but that’s a personal favorite of mine so I could be projecting.
Overall, an excellent episode.
I could tell that Chapel and Spock’s songs had some significant structural similarities (I am largely ignorant of the technical aspects of music, so I couldn’t say what exactly). Is that typically a part of the “rebuke and reprise” sequence (which is also totally new to me)?
I think a reprise is technically when a song is used again as an expansion on / evolution of a certain theme. The best example that comes to mind is from Phantom of the Opera where the phantom cry- sings to himself after he witnesses Cristine confess her love to the other guy.
Painting with a broad brush here, but this episode definitely feels like it was made by huge Broadway musical nerds 🤣
