Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that at some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. This is a download from the BBC. For more information and our terms of use, go to BBC.com.uk slash radio three.

In the past few decades, we've been sending probes deeper and deeper into space.

We've drawn attention to ourselves.

And if the aliens are now watching

crackly TV broadcasts of our old science fiction films, we've got a bit of explaining to do.

Musically, I mean. Why, oh, why, oh, why, they're probably saying on Alpha Centauri,

do these humans always start playing the pheromene when we come on? That's one of the deep, deep space questions we'll address with our guests,

as tonight's film music prom beams itself into the repertoire

associated with and written for science fiction cinema.

So let me introduce you to the leaders of the away team,

who will play Kirk and Spock to my Man in a Red Jumper,

who's the first to get killed. They are the composers Miguel Mera and Anna Meredith.

Now, in space, no one can hear you scream, no can hear you do anything pretty much, I think,

and no composer has ever been sent into space.

So what musical ideas does it suggest to you, Miguel?

I think there have been two main ideas that I think composers have tended to use

when it comes to scoring or representing space.

One, I think, is about the music of the future at a particular time, whatever that might be,

with whatever technological advancements there are at the time.

The other, though, is also music of the past.

And in lots of films about space, there's use of pre-existing music, very literally music of the past,

or sort of harking back to romantic music

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