Smash: Discussion Thread

[EricMontreal22]

I love Smash--part of me loves it in the "hate-watch" way (though I'm already sick of that term) and part of me genuinely enjoys it. Even at its worse, I'm entertained partly because there's nothing like it otherwise on TV (no, Glee is IMHO very different--albeit when Smash tries for Glee type pop moments they often make Glee look like a Sondheim musical in comparison).

I liked the premier, but... One thing--I didn't think the show had changed as much as critics (who overall seem to see an improvement) and the producers said it would. But I like that they say they'll focus more on the "work" action and less on domestic stuff. Some truly dumb moments--like the fantasy Would I Lie To You moment (this came from the producers who said not to worry that there wouldn't be any crazy fantasy numbers like the Bollywood one last year--which was an awful but wonderful WTF camp highlight for me--and then by episode two they do one). I like that the new characters have a theatre background, nobody cared last year about Dev's politics, etc--although Johnathan Jordan looks much better live than on TV, why did they shave his sideburns, and him getting so mad about people discovering his musical is ridiculous. I also like that for their musical songs they aren't using Marc Shaiman, who does the Bombshell songs, but an assortment of up and coming young musical theatre composers, though I thought only one of their songs was good.

My main gripe actually was that NBC aired two episodes. Like I said, I enjoy watching Smash, but I realized two episodes back to back is just way too much Smash for me. I know they did this because they're pre-empted next week for Obama's speech--b ut they knew about that and insterad should have had the premier AFTER his speech. They're gonna lose the TINY momentum they have...

Also, the numbers are terrible (ratings I mean), though they've filmed most of the season, and this is NBC so I expect we'll see this whole season, but nothing else if, by some weird miracle, they don't improve. But pairing it opposite so many shows with a similar demo (The Bachelor, New Girl), and having Betty White as a lead-in?? (I am no Voice fan, but pairing it with Smash helped a lot last year). Inane, especially considering how much NBC pays for the show and paid for advertising this year (and last year).

Anyway this is a long but fascinating piece about what went wrong with Smash last year--all done with interviews, though many of them remianed anonymous so... Playwrite Theresa Rebeck (who is a mediocre playwright anyway) sounds like she was to blame--things like she said she hated having a writer's room so never listened to them, she based Julia on herself--down to the scarves and the adoption story nobody else liked--so was very protective of the character and how she behaved, etc. Merron and Zadan, the producers (who have produced--good and bad--nearly every tv and movie musical for the past twenty years it seems and have huge egos) sound like they behaved awfully--and Spielberg barely helped at all (he loved the idea of Ellis, he wanted to fire Megan Hilty, and otherwise he seemed to pay no attention). I don't get why people putSpielberg on TV shows as an EP anymore--he's obviously too busy, and I can't remember when the last hit Spielberg EPed show was--even his 80s stuff like Amazing Stories flopped--the only ones i can think of that lasted were cartoons Tiny Toons and Animaniacs... I get that he's a name they can sell, but...

Anyway here's the article: http://www.buzzfeed.com/kateaurthur/how-smash-became-tvs-biggest-train-wreck

Greenblatt has not been able to turn around NBC. Maybe now he should just skip to cable (I wish Smash would have stayed with him at Showtime, though with Theresa Rebeck stillin charge it prob would have had many of the same probs). Deception isn't doing much better than Smash did, is it? And Do No Harm did a bit worse, actually. Both are expensive shows, but not nearly as expensive as Smash, but...

[marceline]

I'm not defending them but I wonder how much of the bad ratings was because the first hour of the episode has been available online for almost a month.

[EricMontreal22]

I didn't even know it was online for a month, but I do know a lot of people who recorded the second hour and din't watch it live (though I have no clue what the rating fallout was).

[DRW50]

NBC is still too niche. I don't want to see formulaic shows but they need broader shows. Otherwise when their bigger shows, like The Voice, aren't on, anything else collapses.

If they want to have a niche they need to be better at it. Most of their niche feels like something that would be better on cable. Either that or down a toilet (New Normal).

The article was interesting. I was a little stunned at how they basically realized the actors who played Leo and Ellis sucked but just never bothered to recast. I also never knew what a hard time David Marshall Grant had.

[wingwalker]

I agree. Funny, one of their few shows broad show that's not niche is Chicago Fire, also happens to be the one of the few NBC shows not cratering in the ratings right now. CF has been outperforming it's SVU lead in all season and has beaten Nashville on several occasions and has further eroded CSI's audience. Nobody talks about CF but it's been a quiet success for them. If NBC keeps it and let's it continue to grow it's audience, NBC and CF will be #1 Wednesday's at 10 in a couple years, maybe faster if NBC can find another good procedural to replace SVU at 9 next year (I'd move SVU to 10 on a different night or end it).

[DRW50]

Speaking of SVU, hearing that they had Mike Tyson on makes me very happy I waved goodbye to that show a long time ago.

[Vee]

I enjoy Smash despite its many faults. I think it's an inspired concept, a fun look into the theater world, and I like a lot of the cast, and it's fun to watch on a Monday, so that's enough for me given all the serious-ass [!@#$%^&*] I watch. I even enjoy Katharine McPhee, who, while I think she has weakness, I also think gets a lot of OTT hatred from very overinvested fangirls projecting a lot of personal bullshit onto her when stacking her against the excellent Megan Hilty. And I thought her Marilyn was considerably more Marilyn and less Broadway than Ivy's.

The show still has a lot to fix, but I thought they did a much better job calling people on bullshit in the premiere, both with characters like Tom and with people like Derek and Julia. I do think it's a pity Frank is totally gone.

I don't expect the ratings to improve so it's probably got one more uneven season left, but it's an inspired piece of fluff and I enjoy it. And the new Broadway boys are delicious. I love the music except for some of the lamer musical numbers - like the Eurythmics one.

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah it sounds like, re the casting anyway, too many cooks in the kitchen (and not communicating).

I think you're absolutely right. While, in concept anyway (rarely in end product), I find their programming much more interesting than anything on CBS, it simply doesn't work with the current network tv needs. And almost all of it feels like watered down cable programming. I suppose Greenblatt was a bad idea from the get go. (And don't get me started on New Normal--I usually have a love/hate/hate relationship with Ryan Murphy where some moments or some of his "outrageousness" keeps me watching despite myself, but New Normal is simply everything bad about his shows mixed together and multipled).

I have a lot of respect for David Marshall Grant. I don't think he's a great showrunneron his own (his seasons of Brothers and Sisters were uninspired to say the least, but he did make the show slightly stable after it had gone through, what, three showrunners in two years when the creator quickly bailed due to ABC's interference), but obviously if Rebeck--who from her theatre work interviews has always come off as unpleasant to say the least, should have worked together with him. And he's someone in the industry--as an actor or as a producer/writer--who you simply never hear an unkind word about how he is with others, and his work ethic.

[EricMontreal22]

...Except it's on Tuesdays now. But I agree completely with you, honestly. It's just frustrating because it has so much more potential--but perhaps on ANY network it could never find that. As even the critics who (lamely) go on about hate-watching it mention, it really is unlike anything else on network (or cable) tv, and makes a nice break from mean spirited sitcoms and endless violence and gore procedurals.

Frank deserved a better exit--he's a great performer, but he was stuck with--at least from that article--prob one of Rebeck's most thankless roles and plots (but again, true to her life! So I guess she thought it must be drama). At least from the premier I suspect they dropped the Julia's Pregnant/vomiting thing from last year's finale, though I know Will Chase is back for an episode or two (as is, apparently, for some reason, Ellis) so...

I think the original music is remakrably strong (the Marc Shaiman stuff is better than some of the stuff he did for his own shows like Hairspray)--but the covers only rarely work, IMHO

On theatre boards the main complaint often is "that's not what the theatre world is like". Which just makes me laugh--that's the least of my complaints. Even "gritty" cop shows like NYPD Blues aren't much like the cop world is like either, if you go into details. One (apparently non theatre fan--or so he claimed) in the NYTimes actually said that the show really should have been like Fosse's movie "All That Jazz" which is just so ridiculous--like any tv critic actually thinks something like All That Jazz would make it to TV, especially network tv.

[EricMontreal22]

A Canadian radio interview show I try to listen to, had a woman from the US who had created a petition for NBC on that subject matter on. I often think things like that are over the top, but her argument against having him on that particular show, made complete sense--and the way NBC treated her (despite apparently tens of thousands of signatures) was beyond poor form.

[EricMontreal22]

I think Chicago Fire is a good show. Not great--and I don't care if I miss it, but I enjoy it more than most of the CBS procedurals. My only problem is--while I think you're completely right, I do think all of this just shows that network tv will--not soon but not too far away--complete erode as far as original programming goes. These shows do serve as comfort food, but so do cheaper cable shows (yes, I know, this is the argument against soaps too), and I know a umber of people who tune into Chicago Fire when they get home and can't find anything else on--but the shows all start to blur together.

But like I said--NBC's watered down cable style shows don't really work either, so...

[JackPeyton]

I dont think Smash would reach its full potential on any tvnet, cable or network or even premium. Budget aside, the broadway world is too... much, with too many layers in it for a tv show to capture. From my (admittedly, limited) interaction with broadway fans they want everything to be perfect and represent their view of the world and disreguard everything else. A majority online basically dismiss the tv show on the basis that it is a tv show. Not to say the show is all it can be, it can approve greatly even within the limits of its budget and limitiations of a weekly network tv show but it gets a lot of hate just to hate.

I think KM is great in the role of Karen. No, she isnt "broadway material" but... that is kind of the point of the character and the appeal of her in the Marilyn story. MH is truly phenominal, but Ivy is very much broadway in a way that doesnt work for Marilyn as much as Karens approach. That wasnt reeally established or played clearly, but thats the way I have always looked at and assumed it was supposed to be.

JHud is a great addition. She is truly great.

Also, I think another reason Smash got so much hate was the hype. This show was insanely hyped and could never have lived up to it. It was sold as this oscar worthy film but on network tv and it just... wasnt. Smash is a very entertaining show, at least to me. I enjoy watching it, i enjoy rooting for Karen, and I am left wondering what they will do next, where is the story going.

As for NBC as a whole, it really did try. It tried a lot. It tried leno at 10, it tried niche cable shows, it tried single cam docu series types. It tried ent-industry shows. It tried basically everything. And the biggest problem, even bigger than it all basically sucking? It felt like they were trying hard. NBC just needs to honestly look to its own past to see what worked. Where are the family sitcoms (on any network, really)? The good episodic dramas featuring dynamic characters that keep people coming back? Stop trying to be cool, edgy, hip and creating "smart" tv shows and just made some entertaining ones. Tough i shouldnt complain too much, because Days' ratings must look damn good to them! lol.

[DRW50]

I think there was an inherent smugness to NBC during the Must See TV era which they've never entirely shaken off. I'm not saying bring on fake and patronizing blue collar sneering, just a move away from the same pseudo-intellectualism that pops up again and again. For instance, I have no idea why Matthew Perry continues to be given major sitcom roles when he's never been able to carry one on his own - he worked in an ensemble.

Smash seems to be full of people, like Debra Messing, who give off that vibe.

[Vee]

I don't think NBC is really the problem with Smash. I think the people behind Smash are the problem with Smash - first Theresa Rebeck, then Steven Spielberg and his cadre's alternately overbearing or absentee stewardship, then probably some others. I hope it's righting itself this season, but I don't expect miracles.

And I like Debra Messing.

[EricMontreal22]

A lot of the hate-watching glee though is also from tv bloggers, etc, with no theatre background. I get what you're saying, and that's out there in the Broadway community but it's no better or worse than other obsessive fan communities. The difference, i think, there haven't been that many series about the theatre world (the underated Canadian cable show--which does seem to a have a cult US base--Slings and Arrows about a small regional theatre is the only other one I can think of). So I think people are more unreasonable about how it's shown than, say, lawyers would be (although plenty complain about The Good Wife), because we're so used to watching law, cop, hospital shows. This isn't quite the backlash though of like the group of Nurses who demanded to have Spelling's Nightingales get the boot, lol.

Still, what got the most flack from theatre fans that I saw was all the non theatre stuff--the adoption story, the kid does pot story, the Dev is a politican story, the gay republican story (which was quickly dropped). It looks like they've cut most of that this year, which is smart.

I think giving Karen a spine this season is a smart move and helps to balance out the two characters which really was needed. Hilty's character last year did so many awful things but her performance saved it and made her appealing (and a weak "my mom never likes me oh and I may be about to overdose" plot didn't help). And there were some melodramatic moments that did irk fans like the fact that if she was a chorus girl who got drunk on stage and ruined a performance she would essentially be blacklisted and have to try to rebuild her career somewhere far far away (if she were in a lead role, and a known name, it would be different).

People seem mixed with her, but I like her so far too. I know she's only doing a handful of episodes though,.

Completely agree. NBC was doomed to failure--they obviously saw it as a saviour show for them, and the hype was ririduclous--the advertising alone. I know it was the one pet project Greenblatt brought with him from Showtime, but still, of course there's gonna be backlash to that.