Okay, so let's talk about "SMASH":

[rachelleneveu]

SMASH is an exceedingly mediocre series on NBC right now about the creation and production of a Broadway musical about the life of Marilyn Monroe. We watch the show from the point of view of several different characters involved in this production, including Julia and Tom, who write the book and music, Eileen, who is trying to produce the show against insurmountable odds, Derek, the abrasive and demanding director and choreographer, and Ivy and Karen, both of whom are competing for the lead role.

It isn’t a good show…but it’s not bad, either. Think Hart of Dixie, but with more singing. Or Glee, if Glee had anything remotely resembling realism in its production values.

Things I Like:

* Ivy! Ivy, Ivy, Ivy. After one episode she became my favorite character, and not only because she’s played by the talented Megan Hilty. She’s put in ten years in the chorus ensemble and is finally getting her chance to shine, and honestly, it’s because of her that the show got any kind of positive review before they even started workshops or finished writing the damn book. She’s seen all the movies and read all the books, she understands Marilyn in a way that Karen can’t; she wants this so bad it hurts, so badly she’ll do anything she can to keep this role (the role of a lifetime!), but there’s still this vulnerability to her – what Ivy wants most is to be loved, to be respected, to get the praise she’s spent the past ten years working to deserve. LONG STORY SHORT, sorry Katherine McPhee, you’re pretty and you have a beautiful voice and I do like you as an actress, but Ivy’s my girl and I want her to win.

* Anjelica Huston, because she brings a touch of class and a distinct kind of emotional depth to whatever (poorly-written) role she’s in. Even though her character is very inconsistently written, I like the friendship she has with Derek and how strong she is (...most of the time). Also, every time we see her soon-to-be-ex-husband, she throws a drink in his face.

* Dylan Baker, who plays Karen’s father. I like him so much as an actor: he’s a very talented man who, unfortunately, is mostly known for getting memorable parts in rather unmemorable shows and movies (see: Burn Notice, Kings, Spiderman 3, etc.). I hope they bring him back.

* The guy who plays Tom, Julia’s writing partner. He and Ivy have such a wonderful friendship and even though I’m not a big fan of the way they’re setting up the “love triangle” between Sam, Ivy’s gay, sports-obsessed best friend, and Tom’s boring sort-of boyfriend John the Lawyer, I like the way he interacts with both these men, and think that he’s very funny.

* Surprisingly, the Joe Jonas cameo. His reaction to Ivy’s asking him to “show her the bedrooms” in Derek’s apartment was actually very funny to watch.

* A lot of what we’ve seen for the actual musical, however pieced together it may be. I do think they’re focusing way too much on Marilyn’s relationship with Joe DiMaggio, but hopefully Arthur Miller and JFK will get their time in the spotlight later on in the season.

* The scene at the end of the most recent episode (right now, #7) where Julia tells her son that she’s ending her affair and he bursts into tears, because I’m sorry, that was fucking hilarious. My fake crying is better than that, and my fake crying is terrible.

Things I Don’t Like:

* A lot of the non-Marilyn-related musical numbers are really just painful to watch. Case in point: the “Bruno Mars” thing Joe DiMaggio guy was working on before he joined the cast. (The music clip does not do justice to how absolutely horrendous this scene actually was. I thought I was hallucinating until Harper assured me otherwise.)

* Karen’s hick friends from Iowa, for memorable quotes like, “You’ve got your boyfriend to pay all your bills? That’s great!” and “Feminism is overrated!” …gag me.

* The affair plotline between Julia and the man they’ve hired to play Joe DiMaggio. COME ON, JULIA, YOU’RE GETTING UPSET BECAUSE HIS WIFE – WHO KNOWS NOTHING, I MIGHT ADD, ABOUT WHAT YOU TWO ARE DOING NOW OR WHAT YOU DID FIVE YEARS AGO – COMES TO SEE HER HUSBAND AT WORK AND KISSES HIM IN GREETING? I’M SORRY, LET ME FIND A TINY VIOLIN SO I CAN PLAY A SAD SONG FOR YOU WHILE YOU CRY ON THAT STRANGE MAN’S BICYCLE. GROW UP.

* Dev, Karen’s workaholic boyfriend who overreacts to the slightest inconvenience to his life/job at some kind of NYC public official’s office, idk, I was baking and I think I was distracted by the oven timer when they actually said what he did for a living and I honestly can’t be bothered to go back and look.

* KAREN. She’s the main character, and it’s very obvious that we, as the audience, are supposed to root for her to somehow beat Ivy out for the part of Marilyn and shine on the Broadway stage, therefore living out her dream and becoming the star absolutely everyone knew she’d always be. This is a formula that’s been done before and proven to be true, so why is it so hard for me to like her? I don’t know, maybe it’s because Karen is a total moron. I do realize that she is very, very new to the Broadway circuit; she’s fresh of the bus from Iowa and despite having lived in the city for (a short time? long time? they never actually specify how long she’s been living in New York) an undetermined amount of time, she has no idea that no one is going to just hand her a role in a Broadway production. She didn’t even know she should be taking dance classes and voice lessons, even when she’s not performing. Even I know that, and I am not and never will be a Broadway-quality singer/performer. And yet, great things keep falling into her lap. She loses Marilyn to Ivy, but gets a part in the chorus! She gets to talk about how little respect she has for women who dress provocatively, but then everything's okay when she uses her ~feminine wiles~ to get important information on her boyfriend's job from a jerky stranger! She takes a job singing at a bar mitzvah (which she’s terrible at, by the way) and gets a meeting with a big-shot record executive! Karen is also a bit of a hypocrite: she expects her boyfriend to be okay with her working with a director who invited her to his home at 10/11 o’clock at night, hit on her, and continually puts her into sexually suggestive situations in front of the rest of the cast, but she gets upset when she finds out that R.J., his good friend and inside source at the New York Times, is a woman? Also! She gets fantastic lines like: “Why do I have to be sexy all the time? I wish I was fat!”

…yeah. There’s a reason I like Ivy better, and not just because she’s the more rounded, well-developed character of the two and Karen is very, very reminiscent of what some call a “Mary Sue.”

Things I Am Unsure About So Far:

* Derek, the director/choreographer with perfectly tousled hair and a debonair British accent that is extremely demanding of his cast and also sleeping with Ivy. SOMETIMES HE HAS FUNNY LINES, SOMETIMES HE’S JUST A GIANT TOOL. HE MAY HAVE PLAYED COMMODORE NORRINGTON IN THE PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN MOVIES BUT I DON’T KNOW HOW I WANT TO FEEL ABOUT HIM YET.

* The adoption subplot with Julia and her husband. They are trying to adopt a daughter from China and for some reason, despite wanting this for years, since their biological son was a small child, they didn’t realize that the process would actually take years to complete. Plus, it got shoved off to the side very early off – partly to make way for Julia’s affair, partly to make way for some stuff between her and her son – but it bugs me how they’ve handled the subject so far and I hope that they can fix it…or at least, come back to it in a way that doesn’t seem completely forced.

* Frank, Julia’s husband. I like him, but I wish they’d shown us more of him/his relationship with Julia before going into her picking up her affair with Joe DiMaggio guy again, because they kind of box him up with being out of town getting recertified as a teacher, therefore giving Julia and Joe DiMaggio guy a chance to ~reconnect~.

* Ellis, Tom’s assistant, and what the fuck is going on with him. Like, I get that he’s supposed to be a foil for Julia, but what is the point of him showing up at parties he hasn't been invited to, and him stealing her notebook and spying and passing information onto Eileen? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHERE YOU ARE TRYING TO GO, SHOW. PLEASE BE CLEARER IN THE FUTURE.

* The musical. Yes, they’re piecing it together well – in the workshop episode, the numbers they perform flow very well into one another, and the choreography is great – but I have no idea how this would work as an actual staged production. Maybe when they have a more complete book sometime later in the season, it will make more sense?

You can find all the episodes at hulu.com (linked above), or here at the show's website. I'm sure there are free downloads out there, too, but I wouldn't know about that. You'll have to do a little digging on your own if you want to find them.

And as per usual, my watching this trashy musical soap opera is entirely Harper’s fault…and also because The River, while awesome, has ended for the season and I was bored. But mostly, Harper’s fault.