- The Control Voice: For years we have searched for the answer to an eternal question: "Are we alone?". As yet, there has been no answer. Or perhaps the answer is only for those with the facility to hear it.
Earth receives a strange signal that children perceive as beautiful music, but listening to it causes people to mutate.
- The Control Voice: It is said that music is a universal bridge, crossing the barriers of culture, age, and language. Perhaps, eventually, we will learn that it also spans those of time... and space.
Music of the Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Dr. Taylor (Howard Hessman) states, "You should have heard what we had in the Sixties. THAT was music.
- Benevolent Alien Invasion: Alien music begins to mutate those who listen to it. As those who haven't listened to the music investigate, they learn that the sun is about to undergo a shift, becoming deadly to humanity as it is now. The mutated form will survive. Instead of being the usual Downer Ending twist, they learn this in time to get the word out, and spread the broadcast far and wide enough for everyone on Earth to be able to undergo the change.
- Brown Note: The music is a signal from space which, in addition to being extremely addictive, ends up causing a series of dramatic physical transformations in listeners. Notably, unlike most examples of the brown note, the changes the music causes ultimately turn out to be beneficial — it transforms humans into a form that is resistant to a high-UV environment, which is what the Earth is about to become due to the sun undergoing a "shift."
- By the Eyes of the Blind: The alien audio signal is only recognizable as music to teenagers, but not to adults or younger children.
- Emergency Transformation: This episode has aliens subjecting the whole of humanity to signals that people think are music, but causes mysterious changes. Instead of the Cruel Twist Ending the series is known for, it turns out it's an Emergency Transformation into bald, large-headed, golden-skinned creatures, so that they can survive an impending shift in the sun's radiation. The aliens' process initially only works on people close to puberty but once the humans figure out what the hell is exactly going on and why they manage to enhance the process so that it can be applied to anyone. Some of the characters refuse to go along with the transformation; as one of our main characters puts it, he wants his wife to be able to recognize him in Heaven.
- Fling a Light into the Future: The world is bombarded by alien broadcasts that anyone under the age of 21 or so believe to be the most beautiful music they've ever heard. When the broadcasts prove addictive and cause those who listen to them to mutate, the world governments declare martial law, until scientists succeed in decoding the message. The signals originated on a world whose sun had turned ultraviolet 40 years ago. The signal warned that Earth's sun was about to undergo a similar change, and that the broadcasts would genetically alter those who heard them into a new golden-skinned form that could survive under the new sun. Fortunately, it had a rare good ending with no twist involved: the powers that be actually realize the importance of letting that music play, specifically rebroadcast it across the world, including using mobile vehicles to get the sound out to third world countries and to the non-human life on the planet, and in the end, it's insinuated humanity will be just fine. Even those who are too old/decide not to mutate will live... indoors and underground.
- Magic Music: The titular music is a signal from space which, in addition to being extremely addictive, ends up causing a series of dramatic physical transformations in listeners. Notably, unlike most Brown Notes, the changes the music causes ultimately turn out to be beneficial.
- Parent-Child Team: Devon Taylor and his father Dr. Emory Taylor work together to determine exactly how the alien music is affecting the teenagers who listened to it, including Devon's younger sister Joyce.
