An alternate Klingon opera and other 'Subspace' secrets from the “Star Trek” musical
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It may take a moment to wrap your head around the idea of rockers from the band Letters to Cleo now forever linked to the legacy of Star Trek, but perhaps it was already engrained in the DNA of its stars.
Lead singer Kay Hanley has been linked to major pop culture moments, like when she performed on the soundtrack for 2001's Josie and the Pussycats as the voice of Josie, or when she appeared as a musician on screen in 1999's 10 Things I Hate About You, as well as a 2014 episode of Parks and Recreation. Polce, now a staff producer and composer at Paramount, separately worked on music for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. This past year, they both found themselves involved in another significant zeitgeist development: writing the music for "Subspace Rhapsody," the first-ever full-on musical in the history Star Trek for season 2 of Strange New Worlds.
"The idea that we were writing for these canon figures in pop culture history and sci-fi lore, we couldn't f--- it up," Hanley tells EW in an interview with Polce over Zoom in September. "We took it very seriously, as we do as people from New England. We are rule followers and we do things. We do our research, we do our homework."
Paramount+ The Enterprise crew break out in song and dance in the 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' season 2 musical episode.
Hanley previously composed music for animated shows like Disney's Doc McStuffins and Cartoon Network's DC Super Hero Girls. She also won an Emmy for her work on Netflix's We the People. Though, the singer-songwriter's knowledge of Star Trek comes in part from the Trekkies in her own life, including her nephew Brendan, who's "a Trekkie of the highest order," she says. Having watched the original show with her dad on WSBK-TV, which is Channel 38 in Boston, ("Shout out to '70s Boston!"), Hanley adds, "I had some knowledge of how seriously people take this s---."
"It's a Star Trek musical, so my head exploded when it came up. Kay's head exploded," Polce adds. "Can you imagine somebody who's a completist for Star Trek hearing that there is a musical? I mean, their heads went fully nuclear. And in some cases, no matter how well we did it, it's reasonable to think that some people aren't going to even be open to it. So, we needed to make extra certain that we did an honorable and forthright and virtuous swing."
Hanley and Polce break down some of the big musical moments from "Subspace Rhapsody."
A Klingon opera moment exists somewhere
Paramount+ 'Strange New Worlds' actor Bruce Horak as Klingon General Garkog in 'Subspace Rhapsody'
Actor Bruce Horak, who previously appeared on Strange New Worlds as Hemmer, has a featured cameo in "Subspace Rhapsody" as a Klingon general named Garkog, who breaks out into a frenetic K-pop-inspired dance break within the finale ensemble number. Two versions of this moment were filmed: the one that made it to the screen and a more operatic take.
Hanley's first instinct was to make the Klingon bit in the vein of K-pop. She showed Polce her favorite K-pop music video, which she won't disclose. "It'll just lead to a bunch of, 'Well, did you copy that?'" she remarks. "What we wrote doesn't sound anything like this particular K-pop band."
"But it got us in that world," Polce notes. "She pitched it to me and my head exploded. Then she pitched it to the showrunners and the writers, which we were both a little apprehensive about. They were immediately like, 'Oh hell yes, we're going to do that.'"
As they were working on the piece, some of the higher-ups caught wind of it and wanted to put the kibosh on that plan. "To be fair, I don't believe it was the network," Polce clarifies. "I think it was some of the folks on the core Gene Roddenberry side. It wasn't so much like, 'No, no, no.' It was like, 'Maybe you do that and you have something in your back pocket and we can discuss later.' It's like when your parents tell you to get a degree in business while you also get your degree in music."
The alternate plan was an operatic song for the Klingons. "We shot both," Polce confirms. "The opera is shot, and that'll hopefully come out someday. Congrats to everybody for having the chutzpah and the audacity to make that. I mean, the whole thing is audacious. Why not just continue hedging bets on a Star Trek musical once you've already begun? You've got Spock singing for crying out loud! Just keep going."
Giving Spock his voice
Paramount+ Carol Kane, Christina Chong, and Ethan Peck feature in 'Subspace Rhapsody,' the musical episode of 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' season 2
The first thing the pair had to figure out was, who in the cast could actually sing? Polce found the answer when he went up to Toronto, the production's regular stomping grounds, to record the actors' vocal ranges.
There were clear standouts. Uhura actress Celia Rose Gooding, for example, could obviously handle more advanced material. Others were less confident in their abilities, like Ethan Peck, the actor behind the typically deadpan, no-nonsense Spock. "Peck came in when I met him and was like, 'Yeah, I don't sing,'" Polce recalls. "It turns out he could sing, and he sings beautifully. So, Spock ended up getting this beautiful song."
"I'm the X," sung by Peck in the episode, delves into Spock's emotional state as he grapples with his relationship with Chapel (Jess Bush) — who was another surprisingly capable singer among the bunch. "It's a Spock lament over getting broken up with," Polce explains. "As you know, Spock is half human and half Vulcan. The Spock we knew from the original Star Trek was very stoic. There was no laughter, there was no joking. What was clocking to a lot of people was, maybe that song and him getting broken up with was the moment that solidified the Spock that they all came to know and love."
"And we did in that song address the struggle between being human and [Vulcan]," Hanley says. "Searching for Y is human, I'm the X. It's a human variable that he should not have ever f---ed with and he's not going to do it again. We thought people were going to be like, 'Oh my God! It's so clever!' But they didn't. They were like, 'This is the moment Spock rejects his humanity and becomes fully Vulcan!'"
Despite whether the actors had musical skill or not, all of them were gonna go for it. "There wasn't a single moment of, 'I don't want to do this,' which can happen," Polce says.
The power ballad
Michael Gibson/Paramount+ Celia Rose Gooding's Uhura in 'Subspace Rhapsody' from 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds'
Gooding made her musical talents known much earlier on in Strange New Worlds. In season 1, Uhura activates a piece of alien technology by singing specific notes. After testing the cast's vocal ranges, it became clear to even Hanley and Polce that Gooding would be a major part of "Subspace Rhapsody," ending in a magnificent power ballad, "Keep Us Connected," in which the actress showcases the true extent of her vocal prowess. "Having her vocal ability and range in our back pocket was incredibly empowering as songwriters," Hanley acknowledges.
The piece sees Uhura at first lamenting over what she perceives to be her weaknesses and succumbs to loneliness. Through song, she comes to learn all these ideas that have plagued her throughout her life are actually her strengths. "We knew that it was going to be kind of the emotional core of this musical and that it had to accomplish a lot of things emotionally," Hanley says.
Typically when writing the music for the show, Hanley or Polce would come up with a brief sample — a short riff on a guitar or a quick vocal run — as the first kernel of a melodic idea. For "Keep Us Connected," Polce remembers Hanley wanting to start with a Gregorian chant. "Then she just starts going numb, and she just starts going and I'm like, 'What's that? I don't even know what's happening.' I'm not boxing her in. Let's go."
"The finale was... Man, it was really tough"
Paramount+ The cast of 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' perform 'Subspace Rhapsody'
Hanley and Polce consider the Trek musical to be one of the more difficult endeavors of their careers. "In terms of the lyrics, I've never had a harder assignment," Hanley says. "It was so challenging. It was consuming for the five weeks that we wrote the basis for all the songs and then doing revisions and stuff like that." Adds Polce, "We were actually doing gigs amidst it and still having to think about them in between the shows. It was glorious work and fulfilling work, but it was a lot."
The songs only became more challenging as they got deeper into the process, making the finale ensemble piece, "We Are One," the most difficult. "Last one was absolutely the hardest because you and I were really struggling with the melody and we were disagreeing on the lyrics," Hanley tells Polce. "We had some lovely brother-sister texts going back and forth about the lyrics."
"There's so much happening and it's, who's going to sing what?" Hanley recalls. "We had to really figure out why each of them is singing. The chorus was probably the hardest one that we had to do. We just did not agree for a really long time on that chorus. A lot of times I think of songs as a jigsaw puzzle. We knew we had enough of the pieces in place that were really great anchors, but it was just how to tie them together in a narrative way that was still interesting, melodically, that was still going someplace that felt like a finale."
"There has to be a saccharin element to the finale. It needs to be very catchy, and there is this sort of sugary, super poppy element that just needs to be there. If ever there were a time for jazz hands and hat-tipping and kicks, that's the finale."
Both credit teleplay writers Dana Horgan and Bill Wolkoff for assisting in the creation of this number. "[The characters are] essentially all talking about what they're thankful for in their jobs," Polce recalls. "I think we would just ask [the writers], can you just give me some ammo? It doesn't work without the whole sandbox. Everybody was important at every moment of this thing."
"Subspace Rhapsody" is now streaming on Paramount+.
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