The Art of the Musical Episode—And Why Buffy’s “Once More With Feeling” Still Slays

In the modern television landscape, there’s a strangely persistent gaggle of specific, enduring episode conventions that crop up again and again across all genres, networks, and runtimes—easily-recognizable templates that can be recycled and adapted to suit the specific characters and themes of a certain series. These “staple episodes,” as I’ll call them (for lack of a better term, though there’s bound to be one out there) continually delight fans despite (or perhaps because of) the repetitive nature of their format. Even though we’ve seen dozens of TV shows do their take on a bottle episode or a heist episode or a Christmas special, they continue to persist across the medium, and more than that, they’re often viewed as milestone episodes: special occasions to get excited about or hope the writers decide to use one day.

The king of all staple episodes is, of course, the musical episode—a consistent favorite among fans of whatever show is ambitious enough to attempt one. If by some chance you haven’t seen a musical episode, the premise is right in the name: characters that normally deliver spoken dialogue will periodically break into song and belt out jaunty tunes as they move the story along. It’s a strange and demanding ask of a TV show, to come up with music, lyrics, choreography, and train its stars (many of whom may not already be vocalists) for professional-quality performances, but the end result is often treasured by fans. But, just like television as a whole, some do it better than others, and across the long history of musical episodes, some shows have undoubtedly been more successful. Though there’s no specific formula as to which TV shows will yield strong (or, at least not ear-bleed-inducing) musical episodes, TV’s best (and worst) attempts at bringing the Great White Way to the small screen can help outline the criteria of what makes a truly great musical episode.

From The Love Boat to I Love Lucy to Riverdale, it’s remarkable just how many shows (across numerous genres) have attempted a musical episode. (Though I want to make a note that I don’t count fully musical shows like Glee or Crazy Ex-Girlfriend under this heading, they’re worthy of their own accolades entirely.) But in order to know what makes a truly great musical episode, you’ve got to know what makes the best ones work so well, and it should come as no surprise that Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s iconic musical episode tops my list.

While the musical episode itself goes back as far as the aforementioned I Love Lucy in 1956 (the episode in question was called “Lucy Goes to Scotland,” and features a Brigadoon-inspired musical number), the musical episode in its modern form is best encapsulated by Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Season 6 entry “Once More With Feeling.” The sixth season of Buffy was no stranger to taking big swings (and featured another classic one-off staple episode, the memory loss-centric “Tabula Rasa”), so it’s perhaps fitting that they would go all-out with original music and lyrics, Broadway-caliber choreography, and lavish musical numbers for their nearly sung-through episode.

So why does “Once More With Feeling” work so well, and how is it indicative of trends across other successful musical episodes? For starters, it goes the ambitious route of creating original music and lyrics. Buffy and Co. aren’t just singing ‘90s hits, they’re crooning about their thoughts, feelings, and emotions to tunes from the pen of Joss Whedon. Though the strength of the music itself is certainly up for debate (Whedon has no musical training yet composed everything himself), the use of original songs gives Buffy a crucial leg up, as the songs are able to move the story forward.

There’s an old adage in musical theatre: if you can’t say it, sing it, and if you can’t sing it, dance it. In essence, songs and dance numbers should be used to highlight crucial emotional moments in a character’s journey that are simply too large to be encapsulated in dialogue. On Broadway, this is part and parcel with songwriting—lyricists and book writers work hand in hand to create original songs specific to characters and events of the story. But most television crews and creatives don’t exactly have a Broadway-caliber skill set, which will lead to many showrunners simply opting to use pop songs and stage their episode as a jukebox musical as opposed to writing their own music and lyrics.

That’s not to say that there aren’t great jukebox musicals (and jukebox musical episodes), the right pop song can deliver a sizable emotional punch when placed correctly in the story. But there’s an undeniable and irreplicable power in original songs that will give any musical episode willing to put in the work a significant advantage, and Buffy’s decision to go that route is undoubtedly what makes it one of the best. Other great musical episodes that feature original songs include Once Upon a Time’s fairytale inspired “The Song In Your Heart” (though the series may be at an advantage, considering many of its characters hail from source material that is itself a musical) as well as Xena Warrior Princess’ “A Bitter Suite”, which predates “Once More, With Feeling” and was nominated for two Emmys.

But even if you’ve got Oscar-worthy original music and lyrics, your grade-A songs are nothing without the other crucial element of a musical episode: the cast. For most TV shows, this is a particularly difficult hurdle. When a series is first casting, whether or not actors can sing is rarely a consideration: most frequently, showrunners don’t even know they’re going to write a musical episode when the show is being cast. Thus, it’s up to fate—and again, the stars aligned for Buffy, as cast members Amber Benson, James Marsters, and Anthony Stewart Head all had previous professional musical experience, and other cast members (bar Alyson Hannigan, who was so frightened of singing she begged Whedon to write Willow out of the main narrative that week) were willing to undergo intense dance and vocal training.

While it’s true that even the strongest vocalists across the cast are not Broadway caliber, nobody on the Buffy soundtrack is outright bad, and Sarah Michelle Gellar’s vocal chops are particularly impressive considering she had no prior experience. But putting your actors through the Broadway intensive isn’t the only route for strong vocal performances—Xena simply dubbed weaker singers over with hired Broadway performers, while the Grey’s Anatomy writers simply lucked out with Sara Ramirez and their bring-the-house-down vocals.

Just as crucial as having strong vocalists is to the success of an episode, failing to set your actors up for success can also result in highly-criticized (and often mocked) products like the Riverdale musical episodes which (again, are worth examining entirely on their own) spring for recognizable songs at the expense of playing to their casts’ vocal strengths. Though watching Veronica, Betty, and Cheryl butcher the harmonies on “Beautiful” is iconic in a campy way, hearing actors (many of whom are already at a disadvantage because of their lack of vocal training) try to hit notes or nail songs out of their range is a great way to lose an audience.

But even the most tone-deaf of performances are still worth celebrating in that even attempting a musical episode is an achievement of itself; it’s a massive undertaking for cast and crew that often exists purely for the sake of fans. While episodes like The Flash’s “Duet” and Psych’s aptly named “Psych: The Musical” may not be winning any Tony awards, any TV shows taking a stab at a musical is a show with a passionate creative team, and guarantees at least one episode worth watching.

For all the latest TV news, reviews, lists and features, follow @Paste_TV.