The second season of The White Lotus was so rapturously received that the third was always going to be a big deal. The new cast is probably the best yet, HBO has been carefully stoking the flames of anticipation since August and early reviews have been positively vibrating with praise. For a moment there, it felt like The White Lotus could do no wrong.
Then it actually began and all hell broke loose. The problem? The theme tune. In seasons one and two, The White Lotus had the best theme tune on television. Aloha!, Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s season one title music, was a beguiling mix of tribal drums and a form of vocalisation that lived somewhere between throat singing and gargling. Season two’s theme song miraculously managed to improve on the formula, remixing the vocal melody into a track that was simultaneously more operatic and clubby than the first. The theme tune won an Emmy. It was such a banger that Peloton instructors started playing it in class; you could never say that of something like Homeland.
