Smash recently announced that its creator and season 1 showrunner Theresa Rebeck was moving on. and Josh Safran (who ran Gossip Girl) is moving in for Season 2. What this means for the show we'd rather not speculate because Smash is such a fragile series. Tweak it this way it becomes a great series rather than a good one. Tweak it that way and it all falls apart. Expectations were too high to avoid studio interference but what the show needs is someone who embraces the core of its appeal and doesn't worry about appealing to every demographic. (Even Marilyn Monroe herself was hardly a universally beloved / respected movie star.) Shows that know themselves first and foremost tend to be the ones that people come to and adapt to, not shows that try to adapt to that mythical monolithic audience.
Happy Birthday.... Mr. Director ♫
1.13 "Tech"
Despite various complaints about the direction of Season 1 I think the show actually has a pretty good handle on forward momentum. more after the jump. Yes, it treads water with the "who will play Marilyn?" question but most shows have certain narrative core elements that are stretched over entire seasons. In this episode they're out of town for "tech" and tensions are running high. Uma's leading lady Theresa Rebeck is nervous and gets extra advice, extra compliments, and then some hot rutting from her director,
Marilyn was always afraid of being a joke. That feeling of not being authentic. Use it."
Set List: Originals -"History is Made at Night" (Hilty & Spaeth) ; Standards - "Another Opening" (Borle), "Happy Birthday" (Uma); Contemporary - "I'm Going Down" (Hilty)
Gay Gay Gay: "Oh Lord! Two boys kissing!!! Get a room" Tom meets Sam's family and it goes surprisingly well.
B♡bby & Dennis: get all cuddly at the sing-off and Dennis even gets a brief duet with Ivy as stand-ins for Marilyn & DiMaggio. Bobby has a wicked sense of humor.
Karen: What are you doing?
B♡bby: Waiting for Derek to have a stroke.
Anjelica Awesomeness: "You're taking this far too personally!"Huston excels at straight talk.
Best Moment & Curtain Call: Dev and Ivy finally meet (by accident) in a loaded uh-oh moment for the series. Obviously once the names are spoken they know who they're dealing with. They've both just been rejected by loved ones. What better way to spread the hurt?
Grade: B+
1.14 "Previews"
...which leads us right into the guilty morning after with Dev and Ivy waking up with insta-regret and separate walks of shame. And then Smash bolts right into its first preview in which we get a medley of the show's greatest hits plus we finally get a title song, and it's a female ensemble number featuring Karen and Ivy (naturally). A nice surprise: Broadway's popular musical comedy baritone Mark Kudisch is playing Daryl Zanuck in the show "Bombshell" within this show "Smash".
Premarital sex for Dev... only it's not with his fiance.
Naturally Karen is super nice to Ivy immediately afterwards sapping all the fun out of Ivy's wickedness. Karen ruins everything! Ivy feels terrible and so does Dev. Also feeling terrible: Ellis (but not for poisoning Uma's visiting movie star), Rebecca (Uma Thurman) because she knows she isn't good, Tom & Julia because they're fighting, and out of town audiences who apparently wanted a Marilyn myth with a happy ending. The most interesting thing about the staging of Marilyn's death was realizing that the gorgeous ballad "Second Hand White Baby Grand" is the finale making its final line ironic and potent.
I still have something beautiful to give."
"Smash!"Set List: Originals ... half the songs we're familiar with plus "Smash" (Company feat. Hilty & McPhee); Showtunes - "September Song" (Huston); Contemporary -"Stand" (McPhee & Odom Jr.)
Anjelica Awesomeness: Anjelica Huston fuses Rex Harrison talk-singing with Marlene Dietrich sultry handsome cabaretness for her first musical number within the show. Well done Morticia!
Best Moment: Julia's comic exasperation with the audience's reaction to Marilyn's death and all the movies made about Marilyn. I saw everything and you know what? In everything... she dies!
She died!
The funny thing that nobody but Ellis is noticing is that this ending could totally work IF the actress had the emotional depth in her pipes to sing that number. Tragic endings can work.
Curtain Call: B♡bby gets the final line once Rebecca quits the show. 'The real question is who is going to play Marilyn?' Cut to: close ups of Karen and Ivy and we're right back where we started.
Grade: B
Previously on Smash
1.1 "Pilot"
1.2-1.3 "The Callback", "Enter Joe DiMaggio"
1.4-1.6 "The Cost of Art", "Let's Be Bad" & "Chemistry"
1.7 "The Workshop" with Bernadette Peters!
1.8 "The Coup"
1.9-1.10 "Hell on Earth", "Understudy"
1.11-1.12 "The Movie Star", "Publicity" with Uma Thurman!