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Tag Archives: Murray Gold

Doctor Who Series: The best track of them all?

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There are few more painful choices in life than this

My favorite track is the last track, “Impossible Choice” from the episode “Amy’s Choice” – a very lucky break for all of us that it ended up as a bonus track. The agony of Amy’s choice between her childhood sweetheart and the “handsome hero” can only be told by the beautiful violin section that seems to cry with us. I was in tears and still cry when I see this scene and hearing the music has the same effect on me every time. Who could make such a heartbreaking choice? Giving your heart to the Doctor will never be reciprocated, yet it pulls at us and at Amy in the way only a three-way love triangle can tear apart the human heart.

Review: Doctor Who Series 5 Sountrack – Matt Smith era

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This might be the best Doctor Who album to date. With a whopping 65 tracks on a double CD, every, single track is amazing in its own right while adding to the background and beauty of the story woven through this first season with our new 11th Doctor, Matt Smith.

Beginning with the chaos of an exploding TARDIS rapidly descending on London, we plummet to earth with a newly regenerated Time Lord, yet plummet into the depth of power of the music of this sequence. Once down, forever leaving the embittered last adventures of the lonely last-of-the-Gallifreyans, we enter the world of the new Doctor via a little girl’s time crack in her bedroom wall and the magic, raggedy-Doctor that comes to save her. Little Amy’s theme is always interwoven with this impossible fairy tale dreamscape music that pulls us into her fantasy – seeing the last of the Time Lords as only a child can. 

Believing for more than 20 minutes

And after 12 years suffering the disbelief of everyone around her, the track “Little Amy – The Apple” calls to mind the beautiful revelation of light that plays over her and the Doctor as she realizes that her magic Doctor has come back to her. 

I could go on and on and on describing the amazing qualities of each track and how they move us right back into The Eleventh Hour, recalling its fantastic moments and imagery back into our brains, but it has to be heard, and thus relived by all soundtrack, music and Doctor Who fans firsthand. I will, however, if you care to read on, review the other highlights of these amazing pieces and celebrate them with you: 

Track 5 – “Can I Come With You?” – oh how we wish we could have too, Amy!
Track 9 – “I am The Doctor” – the heart of a hero shines in this track like never before.
Track 17 – “Battle in the Sky” – I can still see British war planes zoom past me in space. What an awesome thought.


Track 18 – “River’s Path” – the exciting reentry of River Song. This woman does the amazing and does it with class – even when she blows herself out an airlock and into space!
Track 24 – “The Vampires of Venice” – My roomie is right…this track rocks!
Track 26 – “This is the Dream” – creepy revelations in store for our heroes in “Amy’s Choice” and they have the music to back it up.
Track 50 – “Amy’s Starless Life” – it’s sad and you feel sad with her listening to this piece.
Track 56 – “Honey, I’m Home” – check out the last section of this track…River caught in a time loop. It’s powerful.

A Teadrop Can Bring You Back Home

Track 62 – “I Remember You” – the power of a little girl no long little, to bring the most important hero in our world through a crack in time and back into our reality.

My Favorite track of all? Read the blog post that follows. It says it all.

Review: Doctor Who series 4 Sountrack

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We LOVE Murray Gold Doctor Who music in this house…don’t get me wrong, but this album is by far the weakest of all his works. The only strong, good tracks are those in the Christmas special and surrounding David Tennant’s regeneration. Sad, really, because my roomie and I have been waiting for seemingly forever for this album. What a bummer, but wow, does the Series 5 Matt Smith album make up for it! Check out our review of that one next.

The Haunting Music of Doctor Who

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I have been wanting to do a review of the music for the new Doctor Who series ever since the first album came out in 2006. There are currently three soundtracks out; Doctor Who: Original Television Soundtrack (original mushc from Series One and Two), Doctor Who, Series 3 and Doctor Who, Series 4. I will touch base on all of them here.

Every year I go to our local Doctor Who convention, Gallifrey, at the LAX Mariott, I pick up as much music as I do visual Who fare. A soundtrack is so important, it makes the literal difference between how you perceive the identical story, but one version with a good soundtrack and one with an awesome soundtrack.

We are deeply sense-driven beings at times, and some of us more than others. Visuals can touch you – as in the case of the opening fanfare scene of flying through the Time Vortex, but without the music, it is harder to get that “rush” or “buzz” of excitement that comes from deep within our brain as it is stimulated by a sweeping score.

Doctor Who Television Sountrack Series 1 and 2

The first television soundtrack, released in 2006, did not fail to deliver. I always get a chill listening to the first track, simply titled, “Doctor Who Theme”, but not simple in how it makes me shiver with excitement. There are a few tracks on here that don’t float my boat, #30 for one (I could do without vocals, thank you), but I gladly put up paying for them with such treasures as the hypnotic track #3, “The Doctor’s Theme”. Evocative of the lonliness and heartache of a Time Lord forever on the run, who must always and ever let go of the friends and companions he makes on the way, it never fails to bring me to tears and move me down to my soul’s very core. Several pieces are sprinkled with snippets of this haunted, deeply moving theme, coined the “Bad Wolf Theme” by its composer Murray Gold. It is a testament to the deep, intertwined relationship between Rose Tyler and the Doctor that this piece was, “initially associated with the Doctor’s dark and private history, but later became identifed with the “‘Bad Wolf’ plot strand”, a plot that saw Rose risk destruction of her humanity by becoming the “Time Goddess” – all to save her beloved doctor’s current life.

Doctor Who Television Sountrack Series 3

“Martha’s Theme” – track #2 in the Series 3 collection, is airy and light, like the flirtatious, come-hither-and-see-the-stars-with-me glance the Doctor gives Martha after they get back to Earth, escaping a Judoon occupation on the Moon. An amazing soundtrack compilation too good to pass up, too much stuff to include here!

Doctor Who Television Sountrack Series 4

“Voyage of the Damned Suite” – track #12 jumps through highlights of diverse, sweeping music litanies heard throughout other track, highlighting the best of the tragic tale of the doomed starship, “Titanic”. Starting out as “James Bondish” as the Doctor in his black tux (and who can resist that?), moving quickly through heroic strands of the-day-is-saved “bits” to brief and sad, poingnant touches on the all-too-brief Doctor companion Astrid’s ghostly appearance after her ultimate sacrifice to save the Time Lord, ship and crew. I particularly love the driving, urgent bits as they run through the ship, racing against time to avoid an atmospheric re-entry death of everyone aboard.

It’s impossible to go over all the amazing pieces of music on each album (nearly 30 pieces on each album!), so please take it from a particular and discerning lover of movie and t.v. soundtracks and rest assured, these three are worth every penny you spend to get them.