Let’s Get “Smash”-ed

Since it’s not exactly genre, we haven’t discussed the new series “SMASH” which will be wrapping up this coming Monday. So I figure, What the hell. Let’s do that.

First of all, I’m kind of astounded that the series got on the air in the first place. It’s a show for which Kathleen and I are the target audience, and that’s NEVER a promising endeavor. The ratings for the Tonys indicate that the vast majority of America doesn’t give a damn about real Broadway, so why in the world would they be captivated by a TV series about made-up Broadway? If they want to see something on TV about performers struggling for their shot, they’ll put on “The Voice” (the show’s lead-in) or “American Idol” where it’s involving real people, or at least nominally real. Judging by the ratings, viewers more or less haven’t embraced the show, for those reasons and others, and yet NBC has given it a second season pick-up. Which is good, because we’ve been enjoying the hell out of what has been remarkably schizoid ride. And I mean that in a good way.



In case you haven’t been watching it–and the odds are sensational that you haven’t–the series focuses on some hardy souls mounting a musical about the life of Marilyn Monroe. Produced by Morticia Addams and directed by Commodore Norrington, the show is unfortunately titled “Bombshell,” a hideous name because you just know that sticking the word “Bomb” into a title is catnip for reviewers. If the show’s in trouble, the headlines write themselves.

The cast is populated by a insanely marvelous combination of TV, movie and Broadway vets, all of whom have wildly different acting styles because of their varied backgrounds. Not to mention Katharine McPhee who, as an actress, is a wonderful singer. The notion that there is ANY competition between her “Karen” and the character of “Ivy” (performed with Emmy-worthy zest by Megan Hilty) is ludicrous since Ivy is so clearly better suited for the role that they had to develop artificial story reasons why she isn’t first choice. Consequently the show’s tone lurches wildly from episode to episode and sometimes scene to scene.

If this sounds like I’m down on the show, I’m not. There is literally nothing else like it on television right now. First of all, the original songs written for “Bombshell” are insanely catchy and hummable, far more so than I’ve seen in quite a few musicals these days. They also find ways to shoe-horn in various covers of pop songs; if Karaoke didn’t exist, they’d have had to invent it for this series. And then there’s the occasional flight of total demented fancy including a recent Bollywood number called “1001 Nights” which was undoubtedly McPhee’s best performance to date (my God, is she limber. Go check it out on Hulu if you don’t believe me.)

And then there are the guest stars, some of whom are positively meta. When the producers decide “Bombshell” requires a movie actress to give it some star power, they bring in Uma Thurman playing more or less a fictionalized version of herself, which is what “Smash” needed in order to try and bump the ratings up. In a recent episode, Ivy looks longingly at a photograph and I found myself wondering why she had a picture of Bernadette Peters in her dressing room, before I remembered that show business legend Peters did a guest shot as Ivy’s show business legend mother.

The production of the show within a show is rife with sexual hook-ups and romantic turnabouts for pretty much every single person in the cast who isn’t relegated to the chorus. Which all seemed a bit much to me, but Kathleen–a Yale educated stage manager–assures me that it’s remarkably true to life in that regard. If I had any single problem with the show, it’s that oftentimes the developments are so meticulously set up that you’ve got more telegraphing than Samuel Morse. Uma Thurman’s “Rebecca” makes a point of repeatedly mentioning having a peanut allergy and that she only drinks smoothies. You don’t introduce that piece of info for no reason, and the only reason is the obvious reason: she ingests peanuts via a smoothy and she’s out of the show.

So now, with the season finale coming up, we are left with two huge questions: who poisoned Rebecca, and who is going to wind up playing Marilyn? Well, it’s easy to say something’s predictable after the fact, so I’ll go out on a limb three days early and say that it was “Ellis,” the smarmy, unctuous assistant to Morticia (or, if you insist, Hollywood royalty Anjelica Huston.) Why? Because there was a scene where he was in a bar with Morticia and Morticia’s boyfriend (and investor) with a shady past, complaining that Rebecca was wrong for the role and was dragging down the show. Shady boyfriend then announces he’s going to make sure that the tipsy Ellis is gotten safely to a car. He leaves. Why? I figure it’s because he slipped a bag of peanuts that he got from the bar to Ellis and told him to do what was necessary.

So then who winds up playing Marilyn? Katharine McPhee, and here’s why: because the standard show business drama trope is that the young, innocent naif (which is what “Karen” is) gets into show business, gets treated like a kicked puppy, but then inevitably develops the stamina, the determination, and–frankly–the sense of dirty pool required to make it to the top. If Hilty’s character, who is in every way more fit for the role, winds up getting it, McPhee’s character has no arc and no pay-off. My guess is that Karen finds out that Ivy had a one night stand with Karen’s boyfriend and this is the final straw that causes the talons to come out that she will use to then claw her way to the leading role. And she will do something appalling to attain her goal because hell hath no fury. Again, it’s the standard trope. Anne Baxter blackmailing her way into stardom in “All About Eve” or Elizabeth Berkley simply shoving the lead down a flight of stairs in “Showgirls.” That’s what I think is going to happen here. All you’ll need to complete it is Norrington saying to her, “You’re going out there a nobody, but you’ve GOT to come back a star!” Which could make for an interesting second season since McPhee’s on top and she has to guard her back from Hilty.

And if this all sounds incredibly melodramatic and soap opera-ish, well…it is. And I’m still there for it every week. What can I say? I’m a sucker for musicals.

It is, however, worth noting that there already really was a musical about Marilyn Monroe. It bombed. So staking one’s fortunes to a musical about Monroe–which is what both the fictional producers of “Bombshell” and the real producers of “Smash” have been doing–is a risky endeavor. Especially since everyone knows how her life ended, and it wasn’t happy. Although if you want to read a compelling dramatization of that, I’d point you to “Bye Bye Baby” by Max Allan Collins, an entry in his superb “Nate Heller” detective series. Now THAT would make a great movie. Or maybe a Broadway show.

PAD