A Life Less Score-dinary

"A Life Less Score-dinary" is the first segment of the 1st episode of the seventh season of Trolls: TrollsTopia, and the 90th overall episode in the series. It premiered in August 11, 2022.
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Poppy attempts to make life in TrollsTopia more exciting by adding intense soundtrack and narration, courtesy of Dante Crescendo and Lownote Jones.
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Poppy is doing the daily announcements of events: at 8:00am the activities are glitterball, scrapbooking, social cupcaking and then finishing up is hairgliding, all until 8:30am. Branch questions the amount of activities in the time given and Poppy bumps up hairgliding to 8:15 am. She states that before that, they have 5-page surveys to do, which the other Trolls all seem to respond to. She then sings about it and they get excited.
Later, the TrollsTopia Tribal Council are getting ready for the incoming monthly "Life in TrollsTopia" survey results. Attention turns to Branch, who's tallying up the results, and he reports that on average, the Trolls in Trollstopia find life to be "Super Fun". Poppy spits out her drink from her mug. Holly stops there, asks Poppy where the mug came from as she didn't have it a moment ago, and secondly questions why that is bad. Branch explains that last month, the Trolls reported that the result was "Super Duper Fun". Now the entire council has mugs and they all spit their drinks out. Synth is distraught by the loss of a "Duper". Poppy declares they just have to find a way to put more excitement into everyone's lives, to which Branch asks her "how", since she can't cram anymore activities into the schedule without bending time and space. The entire council does a hunted "hmmm" towards Lownote Jones, who simply says "no", shutting the idea down. Branch begs the council to not try and makes things more exciting, stating that they don't need to make every moment of TrollsTopia like that. He instead recommends 30 minutes of peace and quiet, to which all members of the council laugh at him. He tells them he is serious, and the council reply they know (hence why they are laughing). Branch gives a disgruntled "urgh" and walks off.
Dante steps in and decides to make a suggestion as a conductor. Dante notes that he is fully aware of how his Classical music can add excitement to anything and with that in mind he has a proposal.
Later, Demo and Gust Tumbleweed are seen admiring the weather as they have drinks together. Dante asks Poppy to observe as he uses his music to make things more interesting. As the music play, Gust notes that there's only a 5% chance of rain this week, Demo responds to that and both hug at the excitement they are due. Dante notes he calls it "musical scoring".
The scene cuts to Guy ordering a drink, and Dante has his Trolls play dramatic music. This raises the tension in the scene, and Guy begins to make a more dramatic order. Guy, being Guy, makes things even more dramatic when it comes to adding sprinkles. By the time they are done, everyone is cheering Guy's order.
In her pod, Smidge gets the same treatment while brushing, again with some more dramatic music. This encourages her to brush faster, but it also influences other nearby Trolls such as Laguna to do whatever they are also doing more intensely. The result is that Smidge burns out her toothbrushes. Poppy cheers Dante and his orchestra and brags that their rating is going to go way up...
...Branch announces at the next meeting it's gone way down. Dante adds his score to the mix, but is told "not now" by Poppy. Branch tries to convince the council again that TrollsTopia doesn't need more excitement, and they are doing too much. Poppy appears to agree with him and he looks pleased, but she thinks they may not be doing enough. Now Lownote has an idea.
At Satin and Chenille's pod, Lownote adds narration to Dante's musical score, and makes their choice of clothes more rapid fast pace by simply saying "Time is running out". The pair panic and frantically search for an outfit to wear.
Next to get the dramatic narration is Biggie, who is simply blowing the seeds off of a dandelion. Lownote narrates about if Biggie has the courage to blow the seeds off all of the filled of dandelion, to which Biggie panics once again. Frantically, Biggie begins to blow all dandelions as Holly, who has now joined in with sound effects, hits a bell.
In his bed, Guy once again becomes the target of Poppy. Just as before, the effect, however, just doesn't get Guy but all Trolls that can hear it. Guy, Smidge, the twins and a number of other Trolls begin to get scared in bed about what is going to happen tomorrow. Finally all Trolls get up and shout "enough" at Poppy, Dante and Lownote. They all have had enough - they're trying to get some sleep. Finally, the Trolls tell Poppy they don't want life to be constantly exciting and all the music, sound effects and narration is just too much for them. In addition, they complain that she adds so much to the schedule, it feels like she's bending time and space, to which Lownote sheepishly claims that he actually has been bending time and space "just a little".
Poppy notes it was a disaster and Branch, who has been waiting for Poppy to learn her lesson, tells her it's okay. He tells her sometimes they need to slow down and rest and she jumps in with his suggestion, adding "a little peace and quiet". Branch appreciates her compliment and notes he isn't keeping score, though he has a score sheet with the number of times they've both been right on.
The next day, Poppy announces the start of 30 minutes of quiet time. The Trolls go about their moment of peace and quiet and just enjoy the simple things without Poppy's intrusion. Branch tries to tell Poppy this month's result of the survey, yet he is stopped as Poppy is enjoying the peace and quiet. They are interrupted by Lownote and Dante, who apologize while Lownote just smiles as the pair pull off a final joke.
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;Pop Trolls
*Amanda Leighton as Queen Poppy
*Skylar Astin as Branch
*Fryda Wolff as Satin & Chenille
*Sean T. Krishnan as Guy Diamond
*David Fynn as Biggie
*Kevin Michael Richardson as Smidge
*Striped Smiley (non-speaking)
;Rock Trolls
*Lauren Mayhew as Val Thundershock
*Charles DeWayne as Demo
*Blaze Powerchord (non-speaking)
;Country Trolls
*Megan Hilty as Holly Darlin'
*Eric Lopez as Gust Tumbleweed
;Classical Trolls
*JP Karliak as Dante Crescendo
;Funk Trolls
*Michael-Leon Wooley as Lownote Jones
*Rhythm (non-speaking)
*Blues (non-speaking)
*Cooper (non-speaking)
;Techno Trolls
*Vladimir Caamaño as Synth
*Anita Kalathara as Laguna Tidepool
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*"Fill It Out"
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*The title is a pun on "A life less ordinary", which means to live life on one's terms and not the terms of others' expectations and "score", a music term referring to the lines upon which music is written on a sheet.
*The song where the Classical Trolls plays during Smidge's toothbrushing and Laguna's fast-paced book reading scene is entitled "William Tell Overture".
*The episode notes things which are used to enhance a story:
**The "musical score" part of the episode is a commentary on how music is used as a backdrop against sound, with Classical music's traditional and common most notable role in theatre, TV and movies being to serve that role. Classical music has dominated this usage for a very long time, and only began to lose it in the 1980s onwards, when technology became became much more accessible in putting together music, allowing music to be assembled on the fly easier in a multitude of styles. Classical music was used until then because it allowed subtle and dramatic changes to occur without distracting from the scene taking place, while lyrics and instruments could be added or subtracted to enhance it, music theory proved to work the best with it when applied to story telling and it was enjoyable as a go-between for most audience. One such famous example of the Classical genre is the Star Wars soundtrack, which is one of the most recognizable soundtracks to any individual film or movie franchise.
**Lownote's narration is about how narration can enhance storytelling. Often, narrators can explain the plots and thoughts of a storyline scene going on in a show or movie. Clever narration allow the showing of inner monologues and details that wouldn't be obvious to the audience otherwise, and explains what can't be squeezed into the acting side of the story. An iconic example of this style is Forrest Gump, with the actors acting out the story as Gump tells his tale to strangers in a park bench.
***Lownote's version is a reference to movie ads, which often have a overdramatic narrator telling the viewer what to expect from the movie to hype it up. The trope phrase "in a world..." was even used by Lownote.
**Holly later adds sound effects. Sound effects are added in post production to enhance a scene; an example of this is screams when people meet a fate, gunshots where are expected, explosion sounds, twisting metal, animal sounds such as bird calls, etc. One of the most well-known sound effects and an early example of this is the stock "Wilhelm scream", which has become a running gag over time, since it so easily picked up by audiences and is in many TV shows and movies as a result. 
*The story is about excessiveness and how when things are a constant high, those highs seem less and less exciting. Taking a break resets expectations and gives time to adjust to a duller life, so those things can be enjoyed more.
**All of the techniques can indeed be used in excessive amounts, and have been complained by audiences over time. Sometimes, audiences just need a moment to breath and process the storyline or scene, but if the story isn't given that, it can have the opposite effect and therefore annoy the viewer.
*Holly adding sound effects comes out of nowhere; she suddenly starts adding it to the narration and score with no explanation. It's possible a scene or sequence where she suggests the use of sound effects was removed, but her doing it was left in. The Trolls still react at the scene where they've had enough, as though the scene took place while the ending doesn't note it.
**This isn't the first time in the 2D TV series that there's a possible deleted scene or plot event, but dialogue wasn't altered for this. It had happened twice in Trolls: The Beat Goes On!: "Fluffleberry Quest" has a device come out of nowhere that Poppy trips over. Meanwhile "What Did I Miss?" had entire mini-stories removed within the events of the day Poppy was reporting to her father, as was revealed later by the storyboard animatic.
*According to Branch's score sheet on who's been right, Branch has only been right 6 times on matters involving all of TrollsTopia, while Poppy has been right 13 times, based on the tallies that can been seen as most are missing (it's likely 8-10 tallies are missing, based on the last line).
Category:Episodes
Category:Trolls: TrollsTopia episodes
Category:TT Season 7 episodes
Category:Pop Trolls Story Arc Episodes
Category:2D animation