# Up next: a drama that's ALL musical montages **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 15, 2013, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-next-a-drama-thats-all-musical-montages/673958 "2013-11-15T02:23:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-next-a-drama-thats-all-musical-montages/673958/1 "2013-11-15T02:23:27Z")
Seriously, does anyone else think the musical montage has gotten out of hand? They used to be a rare, once-a-season thing, and usually cool as hell - a virtual music video set in the world of the show. Then it was a couple of times a season. Then every episode. Then it was the last episode of _Sons of Anarchy_, which worked in two. It went from cool to useful to overworked to cliche in about four years, to the point where I groan as soon as I hear the soft-rock guitar start riffing. As a show-ender, they maybe have the occasional place. As just a filler somewhere in the middle to show off the director’s lack of originality… They should have been outlawed after one of the first (that I recall) - the searing montage late in _The Shield_ set over Dropkick Murphys’ take on “Amazing Grace.” ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-next-a-drama-thats-all-musical-montages/673958/2 "2013-11-15T16:04:20Z")
Not a drama, but one of my gripes with _Scrubs_ is that it felt like every single episode ended with one of these. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-next-a-drama-thats-all-musical-montages/673958/3 "2013-11-15T16:09:56Z")
David Simon uses these to great effect at the end of various seasons/episodes. Usually ended each season of The Wire with one, and I know he had a good one to Louis Prima’s “Buono Sera” at the end of the pilot epsiode of Treme. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2013, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-next-a-drama-thats-all-musical-montages/673958/4 "2013-11-16T19:32:43Z")
And lens flares! You ain’t a cool cutting edge drama without streaks of light blocking half the screen. Add _Scandal_ type perpetual reflections with the music and it’s Disco Drama!