Liz Lemon once said (lofty way to start this article, I know), “I don’t bail. I’m still watching Smash.” This among others is a similarity I proudly share with the queen of 30 Rock. Despite a strong pilot, after Smash premiered last year on NBC, many were underwhelmed with the sometimes strange and frustrating choices made in the subsequent fourteen episodes. Ratings began to dip, the candles on my Katherine McPhee shrine started to dim and it looked like the end. But then a second season was announced. Maybe NBC was a little embarrassed to let their pricy Steven Spielberg-produced musical drama go ever so softly into cancellation land or perhaps there is some Hollywood mandate that Marilyn Monroe impersonators must constantly appear on my television. Who knows? They dropped a show runner, handed out some pink slips, stopped putting Debra Messing in scarves and geared up for another season.
I know some are still wary to jump back into the drama and hijinks of backstage Broadway due to last year’s obvious and admitted blunders. Little known fact: I was actually eating Indian food while I watched the infamous A Thousand and One Nights Bollywood dream/nightmare. The food made the number a little bit easier to swallow, but the performance still came off as if the High School Musical cast took an unfortunate abroad experience in Mumbai and learned absolutely nothing about their time there. Also, seeing Debra Messing in a sari was, in a word, awkward.
There are no magical Indian dream sequences to be found in the premiere, and I’m happy to report that the newly rejuvenated Smash moves swiftly and still gets a lot of mileage from the musical talents of its cast and the creators’ obvious shared appreciation and love for musical theater. The premiere, “On Broadway,” was dealt a difficult hand. It had to simultaneously explain the absence of a large portion of the cast, introduce a bevy of new faces and give the audience something new to get excited about. Check, check and check in my book.
The show has excised many of the personal storylines and has primarily shifted focus to the production of last season’s musical Bombshell and other new career opportunities. Some character development has been sacrificed for narrative exposition and the ever-expanding cast list has the potential to impede the show from exploring the interesting and dynamic characters it already features. The pressures of theater bring out the best and worst in people. What Smash does well is mine these “make it or break it” moments for drama and explore the psyches of the performers. Smash can sometimes rely too heavily on the backstage tropes, but every once in a while it can really strike a chord. I’m not going to brag, but I have a little bit of experience with the rigors of life in the spotlight. The theater community is still buzzing about my turn as Bugsy in Bugsy Malone in my fifth grade musical.
Katherine McPhee continues to dominate her life-long feud with Taylor Hicks (American Idol 2006 Always Remember), and her Karen Cartwright easily transitions from struggling Broadway ingénue to a more seasoned and somewhat hardened star. Throughout the hour we see a new Karen Cartwright, a performer who has had a taste of fame and is desperate to protect it. It’s a good direction for a character and an actress some consider to be a little vanilla. This newfound prickliness stemming from one of last season’s juiciest twists (Karen’s rival Ivy sleeping with her fiancé) is best displayed when she coldly asks Ivy to take the next elevator. It’s like awkwardly being told that this party is too crowded when you are at the door and can see four kids standing around a kitchen island inside. SNAP.
Part of this Smash 2.0 includes an influx of really pretty people with really good voices, i.e. the bedrock of this show. Jennifer Hudson is a welcome addition as Veronica Moore, a successful Broadway star who strikes up a camaraderie with Karen. Although it is nice to see some female friendship on a show that so viciously pits its two stars against each other in the first season, we aren’t given too much information about Hudson’s character. Her voice, however, is just as powerful as it was when she was bitching out Jamie Foxx in Dreamgirls. Full disclosure: anytime I see the new JHud I fight tooth-and-nail not to pull up Google and search for pictures of the OG Hudson. She looks amazing. I’m in disbelief and incredibly jealous. That’s all I’m saying.
Hudson is joined by Jeremy Jordan and Andy Mientus who play waiters by day and amazingly brilliant and undiscovered songwriters by night. They don’t get a lot of screen time and everything seems kind of forced in terms of plot and acting. But the little snippet we hear of their music is undeniably fresh and gives viewers hope that Smash might have a future beyond the sometimes confining narrative of the Marilyn Monroe musical.
By the closing credits, Karen and most of the characters’ standing in the show is challenged, as the Bombshell and Smash itself completely level the playing field, ushering both into a new and refreshing direction. Although Angelica Houston rules my world, the Broadway financier she plays on the show can’t control the elements around her that threaten the future of Bombshell. It’s a smart way to address the problems of last season and bring in unfamiliar viewers.
During their first of hopefully many scenes together, Hudson’s character imparts one piece of wisdom to our star Karen. Putting on earrings to go address her public, she says (read this aloud in your best Jennifer Hudson voice), “Protect the work. The moment you lose focus, the moment the work suffers. Someone’s always trying to take you down, honey, but if the work’s good, they won’t be able to.” Smash and Bombshell have a lot in common. Both have struggled creatively, but they continue to evolve and grow into better pieces of work. Smash needs to listen to JHud in order to leave the criticism of the first season in the past and integrate the already successful elements with the new energy behind and in front of the camera. On a related note, if this show stops getting so much hate, I can stop watching it under a blanket with a flashlight.
