NBC's former musical drama SMASH has a huge fan in the form of ME! I have loved the show since I saw the pilot. Smash started as hit & ended as dud. For me, yes the show became a guilty pleasure but it was also fun & inventive & there was simply NOTHING like it! The show premiered Febuary 2012 & lasted two seasons.
The show first season stared Megan Hilty, Katharine McPhee, Debra Messing, Christian Borle, Jack Davenport, & Anjelica Hutson as the cast & crew of a new fictional broadway show BOMBSHELL, a musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. Season one started as promising with about 11.44 million viewers (Which for NBC is gold!) but soon dwindled to a season low of 5.34 million (Which for NBC is still golden!). The storyline went from "YES!" to "WHY? THAT'S SO DUMB!" in a matter of 15 episodes.
Season two was worse when it came to viewers yet better when it came to story. Yet we still have some storylines that should have never happend.We saw the grand & thankful exit of some of season one's weakest characters & saw the addition of Jeremy Jordan, Andy Mientus, & Krysta Rodriguez. With them we saw our very own Karen Cartwright & Derek Wills leaves the shining lights of BROADWAY to join a new musical called HIT LIST, written by Jordan & Mientus's characters, at a fictional workshop theatre. With this show came a relationship between Karen & Jordan's Jimmy. A relationship that was pointless & immature. This relationship caused some high school like drama for the cast & crew of HIT LIST. Season two also saw the MAJOR character rehab of Hilty's Ivy Lynn, which was much deserved & needed. Ivy became the character to root for & Karen became the one that didn't care for. Hilty's Ivy shines! She was what I was watching Smash for!
One thing that really bothered me about season 2 was the HIT LIST/RENT storyline. RENT is my favorite Broadway show EVER & Smash disregarded the fact of Jonathan Larson and the message of RENT by having Mientus's character parallel Larson. Even though HIT LIST is definitely NOT RENT & Minetus's Kyle is nothing compared to Larson. The show decided to have HIT LIST start at a workshop like RENT, have the composer die... like RENT (Yet Kyle got hit by a car cause he was too busy singing & Laraon died of a HEART CONDITION. Which is worse?!.), have the show go on even after said composer died... like RENT, have the show immediately transfer to Broadway... like RENT, have said composer win a Tony posthumous... like RENT.
It's like the writer, Safran of Gossip Girl, went into his show runner meeting & said "Let's just do RENT. I got nothing." COME ON! Have a little more respect for a show about living for today, the struggle of AIDS, & bohemian life. Whereas HIT LIST is a show that's about fame & features a number using iPads. Lets get real & just don't.
The only saving grace was the wonderful music of Marc Shaiman & Scott Whittman, the duo that wrote the music for HAIRSPRAY, wrote all the BOMBSHELL score! The music of BOMBSHELL rivals that of any current Broadway show. The music is authentic & catchy & could make a real Broadway show! I'm telling you if BOMBSHELL was on Broadway these two would win the Tony for Best Original Score! The music captures the essence of Marilyn & Broadway, a thing that seems hard for the writers of the HIT LIST music.
HIT LIST is full of upbeat & poppy songs that seem more fit for Glee than Broadway. HIT LIST does have some good music. It's just not filled with the pizzazz that BOMBSHELL has!
The show is a show worth watching & loving if you want to see how the world of musical theatre works! It's not a bad show, just a flawed one. To see what all the buzz is about pick up a copy of Season 1 on DVD & the BOMBSHELL cast recording! Also look for Season 2 on DVD which is coming in August 2013!